The pandemic seems to have started somewhat of a community college renaissance, but a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill is poised to rocket this trend straight into orbit. According to The Edu Ledger:
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[S]tudents and families… are making increasingly discerning judgments about where to spend their time and money, and two-year institutions are winning that competition in ways that would have been difficult to predict even five years ago.
And what are they pursuing?
Certificates, not degrees, are the engine. After four consecutive years of growth, community colleges now enroll 752,000 students in undergraduate certificate programs, a 28.3% increase since Fall 2021.
There are just barely over 1,000 community colleges in the United States which enroll 40% of all undergraduate students, so a nearly 30% increase in enrollment is a huge number. And is it any wonder? When you consider that traditional four-year universities can put you well over a quarter-million dollars in debt, the average annual tuition of about four grand at the local community college looks pretty darned good.
Community college has become so popular, there’s a new trend of “reverse transfers”: students abandoning their high-priced four-year universities and taking their credits back to community colleges to convert them into associates’ degrees.
[T]ransfers into community colleges have increased the most of any sector since Fall 2020, up 13.5%, representing 46,500 additional students. Starting in Fall 2023 returning transfer students… became the majority of all transfer students.
We can speculate as to the reason why. Certainly four-year university tuition would be a driving force, but one wonders if all the woke garbage they were being fed drove the movement as well. After all, they knew the tuition when they started. What they couldn’t have known is how woke it would be. It certainly appears to be a factor. We can only hope so.
And now the One Big Beautiful Bill has a provision in it, which began just this past July 1st, that is poised to explode the community college population. If community colleges were bulging with applicants before, they’d better get ready for transformational population shifts thanks to the new Workforce Pell.
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[T]he affordability advantage is about to get a significant legislative boost. … Workforce Pell, which authorizes Pell Grants for programs as short as 150 hours and eight weeks, is now the law of the land. Signed by President Trump as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Workforce Pell is set to begin on July 1, 2026, for the 2026-27 academic year.
Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs heads a foundation which encourages this path:
America is running short on skilled workers.
That’s a message skilled-trades advocate Mike Rowe has embraced for years.
[snip]
Rowe says that, for example, U.S. military shipbuilding and commercial projects are competing for the exact same pool of skilled labor as hotspots driving the latest innovations in artificial intelligence.
‘The Pentagon needs 400,000 welders and electricians just for submarine contracts over the next seven or eight years,’ Rowe said.
He also notes the starting salaries for these jobs can often be in the low six-figures, and that it’s not at all unreasonable for an under-30 electrician to be pulling in a quarter-million dollars a year.
Trump has done a very good thing for our young people and those older workers who find themselves unhappy or unemployed in their chosen fields. The stigma against community colleges and the trades has most definitely shifted onto woke university grads. Nobody wants a 21-year-old with a degree in gender studies; aside from being useless, they are insufferable. But a young go-getter who can wire your house without burning it down? Now there’s a man you want to have around, and thanks to President Trump, the path towards exactly that is now even smoother.
M. Walter blogs at www.mwalterwriter.com where you can find The Lunatic Left Series, a daily snapshot of Democrat words and deeds so you can see what they’re up to without having to go hip-deep in their toxic brew. You’re welcome 😉
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