At RAMC, we believe affordable community college should be an option for all Americans. Therefore, we focus our advocacy efforts on programs that reduce the economic stress of tuition and student fees, thereby creating more opportunities for working-class students.

Pell Grants

The Pell Grant program is key to college affordability. However, the program needs to be modernized to better serve the needs of today’s students. RAMC members understand the fiscal challenges facing this program and want to work with Congress to keep Pell Grants on strong fiscal footing based on these principles:

• Fund the shortfall. The Pell Grant shortfall, as reported by the Congressional Budget Office, is projected to increase to $17 billion by FY2027. Many low-income students, including those who attend community colleges, rely on this funding to pursue higher education. It is essential for Congress to fully fund the shortfall. At the same time, it is important to understand that the projected estimates of the cost of Workforce Pell by the CBO make clear that Workforce Pell, or short-term Pell, is not a significant contributor to the shortfall currently projected for the Pell Grant program. To read more, visit this RAMC site.
• Maintain access. For community college students, particularly those from lower and middle-income families, access to a Pell Grant is often a “make or break” part of the decision to go to college.
• Maintain Year-Round (Summer) Pell. When Congress cut short the very promising Summer Pell program several years ago due to budget pressures on the Pell Grant program, we made our displeasure known immediately and we kept the pressure up. This led to our playing a key role in the spring 2017 restoration of Summer Pell, a welcome development that provides additional aid in order for allow students to more quickly complete their credential or degree.
• Incentivize success, but not at the expense of access. College completion is an important goal, however, efforts to improve success and completion might have the unintended consequence of reducing access for lower and middle income students to an affordable college education. We support only new funding for federal programs – particularly Pell Grants — being tied to success metrics.
• The Pell Grant program must not forget the needs of non-traditional students who attend school part-time. More than 40 percent of all college students attend a community college, and significant numbers of these students have jobs and families, which often means their only option is to attend school part-time or in the summer. RAMC supports maintaining access to Pell Grants for part-time students and is a leading advocate for continued funding of the part-time Pell program, in order to increase completion rates among these populations.