Workforce Pell: Expensive for Taxpayers and Risky for Students

House Republicans recently passed legislation to extend Pell Grants to short-term job training programs – those lasting just 8 to 15 weeks – through their reconciliation bill. While the bill has not yet been approved by the Senate, the new “Workforce Pell” proposal is intended to expand access to training programs for low-income students, but there are two key design flaws as it is currently proposed.

• First, it would open up billions of dollars of aid to unaccredited vocational programs.

• Second, it would set only minimal guardrails to ensure value for students and taxpayers.

Research suggests that extending taxpayer subsidies to a new set of unaccredited and mostly for-profit programs with limited oversight by a gutted Department of Education will put students at risk and waste taxpayer dollars.