Tuition-Free Community College???

I am reading through the 2,500 page 3.5 Trillion Dollar bill that was introduced by Congress on September 27, 2021. In this article I go over the details surrounding the tuition-free community college portion of the bill.

This Bill contains a provision regarding tuition-free community college. This does not mandate that community college will be tuition-free, but instead creates a program which States, Territories, and Tribal Universities can apply to receive Federal Funds to assist in making community college tuition free. This is also not a permanent program. This program is set to begin in the academic year 2023-2024 and will expire in the academic year 2027-2028.

Application and retention in the program will come with set conditions which the applying entity must agree to and maintain compliance with. For 2023-2024 the Federal Funding would be 100% of the national per-student average community college tuition. The amount of Federal Funding will decrease by 5% per academic year resulting in the 2027-2028 Federal Funding being 80%. That means the applying entity would be responsible for the difference each year; this is because one of the conditions of applying to the program and remaining in the program is that community college tuition and fees for all applying entity controlled/operated schools will be $0.00.

There are additional conditions such as: providing an estimated number of eligible students enrolled in community colleges operated/controlled by the applying entity; the cost of waiving tuition and fees for all eligible students for each award year covered by the grant; list of the controlled/operated community colleges; that programs meet the quality criteria established by the State under 29 U.S.C. 3152(b)(1); assistance in collection of information about and accessing means-tested Federal Benefit programs; assurance that the applying entity will for each year of the grant notify each eligible student of their remaining eligibility; States will meet requirements for transfer pathways between institutions of higher education; and that state Colleges/Universities will clearly communicate to prospective students, including students with prior college experience, who have not completed a postsecondary degree/credential, their families, and the general public about the plans to implement the program, and how eligible students can attend without paying tuition and fees.

So, who is an “eligible student?” Eligible student is defined as a person enrolled in an undergraduate student in an eligible program at not less than a half-time basis, qualifies for in-State or in-District tuition, has not been enrolled for more than six semesters for which community college tuition and fees of the student were set to $0.00 pursuant to this bill, is not enrolled in a dual or concurrent enrollment program, and if the student is a US citizen has filed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA).

Why did I mention US citizen in that last paragraph, well because a non-citizen will be eligible if they would qualify for in-State or in-District tuition, but for their immigration status? I believe this means that even if the immigrant was here on a valid or current VISA that they could still qualify as an eligible student and receive tuition-free community college.

While this Bill does not require States to raise taxes, if a State chooses to participate the only way they could comply with the requirements is to raise taxes. Because the State will have to contribute a portion of the funds necessary and there is a provision stating they are not permitted to reduce the amount they were already contributing to Colleges in prior years. So the State funding of tuition-free community college must be new money put towards education on top of what they already contributed before the grant.