With President-elect Joe Biden preparing to take office in January, this might be community colleges’ big moment.
The institutions’ advocates are already celebrating what a Joe Biden presidency could mean for the community college sector.
“Certainly I think all of us at community colleges are hopeful that the Biden administration will be centering community colleges, and frankly public open access education, in the middle of their policy agenda,” says Dr. Karen A. Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, a non-profit focused on community college student success.
Community college leaders have reason for hope.
Biden’s higher education platform on his campaign website refers to community colleges more than 30 times.
In it, he champions making two years of community college tuition-free through a federal-state partnership in which the federal government chips in 75% of the cost.
That includes free tuition for part-time students, adult learners and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, groups that frequent community colleges but are often left out of state free college programs. A report by the Education Trust found that 14 of the 23 existing free college programs exclude non-traditional students, like older adults and returning students, who did not enroll in college immediately after high school. DACA students can only participate in about half of free college programs.
