This commentary is by Tom Cheney of Jericho, executive director of Advance Vermont. Previously, he was commissioner of the Vermont Department of Human Resources, a legislative assistant to Congressman Peter Welch in Washington,and chief of staff to Vermont House Speaker Shap Smith. He was born and raised in Vermont, graduated from Milton High School and the University of Vermont, serves on his local school board and is on the board of Lund.
While the benefits of free college programs are well established — making education and training more equitable and accessible — Washington politics got in the way of supporting students and strengthening our workforce by removing free community college from the Build Back Better plan.
Yet the urgent need for federal action remains. By 2028, all of the high-pay, high-demand jobs in Vermont will require some level of education or training after high school. Today, only 53% of our state’s working-age population hold a postsecondary credential (including certificates, apprenticeships and degrees). You do not have to look far to see that employers are feeling the strain of the worker shortage.
Even pre-pandemic, 63% of general contracting firms in the Northeast reported having a hard time filling craft professional positions, and 66% rated the adequacy of the local talent pipeline as being “poor” or “fair” in supplying personnel. Many other industries were and still are facing similar challenges in seeking a skilled workforce.
As the Great Resignation has workers leaving their jobs, often in an effort to find better working conditions, many are seeing the need to reskill or upskill in order to find their next opportunity. Unfortunately, the cost of education and training has long been the top concern for many Vermonters who have yet to obtain a postsecondary credential.
This is due in no small part to the meager state investment in public postsecondary education that has driven Vermont to have the highest in-state tuition rates in the country at its public institutions.
If not free college, what can the federal government do to support workforce development and make education and training more affordable in Vermont? It can double the Pell Grant. While the Build Back Better plan and a pending appropriations bill together increase the maximum Pell Grant (currently set at about $6,500) by $950, it is not enough.
Still considered the foundation of a student’s financial aid package, Pell has not kept up with the price of education, and fails to fully serve its founding purpose: to open the doors of education and training to low- and middle-income students. At its creation in the 1970s, the maximum Pell Grant covered about 80% of the cost of attending a public four-year college. The maximum Pell Grant now accounts for only 37% of the total cost of a public four-year college in Vermont, with the average award picking up just 27% of the bill.
Through our research at Advance Vermont, we know that today’s postsecondary students are no longer a monolith of recent high school graduates: They are older, many are parents, eight in 10 are members of the workforce (25% working full time), and about one-third are facing housing or food insecurity. Tuition is just one of the money sinks that are working against today’s students, leaving many with incomplete credentials and mountains of student debt.
Doubling Pell will help Vermont students to view education as an option — and put them on a path to financial and career success. It is essential for driving increased enrollment that will strengthen Vermont’s workforce and economic vitality.
Vermont is fortunate to have a congressional delegation that fought for the inclusion of free college in the Build Back Better plan and supports doubling the Pell Grant. If only their colleagues in Washington would see their wisdom and act now to make education and training more attainable at the time when it is needed most.
