Free public college
The "Free Public College" movement has been growing since President Obama first suggested supplemental federal funding for community colleges in his 2015 State of the Union Address. Since then, there have been a variety of federal proposals introduced in Congress to provide institutional aid to all public colleges, state-level free public college progams have been proliferating, and "free public college" has become a popular progressive campaign promise.
While this is not a priority for the Trump Administration, congressional Democrats remain interested in providing something that looks like "free college" in the reauthorization of the Higher Eduacation Act (HEA).
Most prominently, the House Education and Labor Committee introduced the College Affordability Act, which includes “America’s College Promise,” a federal-state partnership for tuition waivers at public community colleges. Additionally, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced the College for All Act, which would provide free public two- and four-year tuition for families making less than $125,000.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has not released a comprehensive draft HEA proposal, but is reportedly working on a compromise "federal-state partnership" in an attempt to address concerns from both sides of the aisle.
NAICU supports the Partnership for Affordability and Student Success (PASS) Act, introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), which expands the existing federal-state partnership to increase state need-based grant aid.
At the state level, free public two-year or community college tuition is also gaining traction as several states have enacted or proposed legislation. New York enacted free public four-year tuition in 2017, and a few other states are considering similar initiatives. However, “free four-year” has not had the momentum of “free two-year” in the states.
A key concern with these programs is that they do not target resources to low-income students. Private, nonprofit colleges, public four-year, and public two-year colleges all have about the same percentage of Pell Grant students in their enrollments. All colleges serve a public mission, even if the independent sector does not get additional state support. The federal higher education investment must remain focused on low-income students, wherever they chose to attend