July 1 came and went, and Workforce Pell launched. And as NPR reported, only 12 states have road maps ready, colleges are scrambling to restructure programs that don't met the instructional hour minimums, and the funding won't reach students until next spring at the earliest. But as noted in the report, this is just the start of longer cycle, so it's still not too late to do what has to be done if universities want a piece of what will quickly become a significant source of federal financial aid.
I'll say with some degree of hubris that none of this surprises me. I, and many of my colleagues in professional & continuing education, have been saying for years that the short-term credential and workforce training space is where real growth will happen for higher education, and that the federal government would eventually find a way to put Pell dollars behind it. Community colleges saw it coming, which is why they're already doing the unglamorous work of mapping employment data, chasing state approvals, and redesigning programs and policies to meet the rules. Private universities, especially the tuition-dependent ones bleeding full-time on campus enrollments, are still standing around dumb-struck.
It doesn't have to be this way. It really doesn't. First, audit every certificate and workforce program on the books against the eligibility criteria. Don't guess, do the audit. Second, build the state and federal approval relationships now (in some cases they're already in place and waiting to be exploited). Third, stop treating workforce training and the non-credit programs running out of your PCE/O units as a side hustle bolted onto your shiny 4-year degrees. Start now on creating real academic pathway with stackable credit into your degree programs.
Like that old mixed tape that keeps playing on a loop... this isn't hard. Implementation just takes a good plan, the will, and the right people to do it.
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