Dr. Michelle Miller-Adams
“Right now, whether you have a tuition-free path to community college or college in general depends on where you live,” said Dr. Michelle Miller-Adams, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization focused on labor markets. “About 15 or 20 states already have some kind of tuition-free community college program. The huge advantage of a federal program is that it takes that random fact of geography away to make this benefit universal.”
David Baime, a senior vice president at the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), agrees with the potential reach of ACP.
“We think that no matter which state is involved, this is a very attractive proposal because the federal government would make billions of dollars available to help states move community college tuition and fees to zero,” said Baime.
But several states may need to ramp up their spending on community colleges to be eligible for the program. According to a recent paper from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), in the first year of the five-year ACP plan, states would need to increase higher education investment from 8% to 142%.
This funding formula has raised equity questions around which states can more easily choose to opt in than others. Currently, the federal government proposes to give states a per-student amount equal to the median resident tuition and fees per student in all states.
SHEEO found that the tuition rates in 29 states are below the estimated median tuition, which means they would likely have remaining federal and state funds to use for higher education. But there are 21 states with tuition rates above that median. Those states would need to invest more to join the program. What happens if they don't?
