Congress Is Poised To Expand Workforce Pell. Here’s What It Means for Adult Learners
Credit: J. David Ake / Getty Images News / Getty Images North America- Students may soon be able to access federal grants for certificate programs as short as eight weeks.
- Workforce Pell Grant expansion has long been a policy issue with bipartisan support.
- Congress’ latest proposal, however, excludes some of the guardrails of previous proposals.
- For-profit colleges and nonaccredited programs would be able to distribute Pell Grants to students for workforce training.
Lawmakers are poised to finally expand Pell Grant funding to short-term certificate programs through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Short-term Pell expansion — also called workforce Pell — has long been a bipartisan policy issue that has narrowly failed to become law despite widespread support. If approved, it would allow low- and middle-income students to receive Pell Grants to attend certificate programs lasting as little as 8-15 weeks.
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The current version of Pell expansion, however, differs from past proposals.
Experts told BestColleges that the reconciliation package would widen the pool of certificate providers that could benefit from expansion. For-profit institutions and nonaccredited programs, for example, would be able to offer short-term programs for which students can use Pell Grants.
Stephanie Cellini, co-director of the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research (PEER) Center, told BestColleges that these would not have qualified under the previously proposed Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act.
“That is very new,” she said. “We haven’t seen an expansion of aid generally to any unaccredited programs.”
Workforce Pell Grant Proposal Explained
Currently, students can only utilize a Pell Grant for certificate programs lasting at least 16 weeks.
The reconciliation bill proposes reducing this timeline to programs as short as just eight weeks. Advocates for Pell expansion say this would help adult learners access certificate programs without the time commitment typically required of students.
Looking to advance your career with a certificate? Check out these resources:
Jennifer Stiddard, senior director of government affairs at Jobs for the Future (JFF), said the House of Representatives and Senate versions of workforce Pell expansion are virtually the same.
The governor of a state in which the program operates must determine that the program will meet these standards:
- Provides an education tied to a high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand industry
- Meets the hiring requirements of employers
- Provides a credential that an employer will recognize
- Prepares students to pursue future credentials or a degree
A program must be in existence for at least one year to qualify, the Big Beautiful Bill states.
The proposal also institutes a 70-70 rule: For each award year, the program must have a “verified” completion rate of at least 70% and a job placement rate of at least 70%.
There is also an earnings threshold that completers of participating programs must meet.
Tuition and fees for a short-term program must not exceed the difference between the median earnings of completers — adjusted based on the program’s location — and 150% of the federal poverty guideline.
Under this proposal, all institutions can participate in workforce Pell, including for-profit institutions. Unaccredited programs may also participate if they receive state approval, Karishma Merchant, associate vice president of policy and advocacy at JFF, told BestColleges.
Inclusion of For-Profit, Unaccredited Programs Raises Concerns
Previously, there had been bipartisan agreement that for-profit colleges and universities should not participate in short-term Pell; only public and private, nonprofit institutions could participate.
Merchant said public institutions tend to be better suited for offering short-term programs.
“A lot of community colleges, part of the reason why they have opened up more short-term programs is in response to workforce needs they are seeing from employers,” she said. “Community colleges don’t just open up programs for the sake of opening up a program.”
Emily Rounds, education policy advisor at the think tank Third Way, said she’d like to see for-profits excluded from workforce Pell expansion. These institutions have a long history of predatory practices, she said, and she worries they may mobilize quickly to access Pell Grants with poor-quality programs.
“That is definitely something that we would want to see in the final proposal,” Rounds said, “in order to do what is best for students and a best use of taxpayer dollars.”
Merchant, meanwhile, pointed to opening access to unaccredited programs as the “most significant” potential change.
Tuition and fees for a short-term program must not exceed the difference between the median earnings of completers — adjusted based on the program’s location — and 150% of the federal poverty guideline.
Under this proposal, all institutions can participate in workforce Pell, including for-profit institutions. Unaccredited programs may also participate if they receive state approval, Karishma Merchant, associate vice president of policy and advocacy at JFF, told BestColleges.
Accrediting agencies act as auditors for college programs. They examine programs to ensure they have the right systems in place to adequately educate students. Students can only use federal financial aid if they attend an accredited institution and/or program.
Experts told BestColleges that opening short-term Pell Grants to unaccredited programs would be a significant departure from the Department of Education’s (ED) historical practices.
Cellini of the PEER Center said this stipulation would place a larger oversight burden on individual states. State governors ultimately have a say on which short-term programs fit the federal government’s standards, so it’ll be up to states to vet these programs and decide whether they are worthy of Pell funding.
She stressed that this is a big responsibility, as students typically associate the ability to use federal funds on a program with a quality stamp of approval.
Protections for Students Focus on Earnings Thresholds
The 70-70 rule and earnings threshold offer some guardrails to potentially weed out poor programs.
Roger Low, CEO and founder of the Colorado Equitable Economic Mobility Initiative (CEEMI), explained that the federal government is hamstrung in what earnings thresholds it can require of short-term programs.
States collect and store wage and cost data in vastly different ways, he said. Additionally, most states don’t have reliable return on investment (ROI) data for workforce training programs outside of public institutions.
“There is a lot of incompleteness,” he said. “This is not a cohesive system.”
He urged states and the federal government to begin collecting better information on outcomes for short-term and workforce training programs. This would not only help students choose high-quality programs but also help employers understand the value of credentials from various programs.
“Employers feel a little overwhelmed. They know they need better solutions, but there is high frustration,” Low said. “The ecosystem is often so jumbled, it’s a little bit of the wild west.”
The requirement that programs graduate at least 70% of participants and that 70% land jobs is an imperfect metric, Stiddard of JFF said. Specifically, the job placement rate doesn’t consider whether students earn a job related to their credentials, but it’s better than nothing.
“Is placement rate an amazing metric? No,” she said. “Is it important to know if students are landing a job? Yes.”
Cellini argues in a PEER Center report that institutions could potentially manipulate placement metrics.
“For example, a college could decide that a student working as the cashier in a salon after obtaining an education to be a manicurist is considered placed in-field, despite the job not requiring the skills for which they were trained,” she wrote.
Her analysis also states that the price-to-earnings metric sets a low bar for programs. By tying the earnings floor to just 150% of the poverty guideline, the average standard nationally would be just $23,475 in 2025, or $11.74 per hour.
That’s below the minimum wage in 25 U.S. states, Cellini said.