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Wiring the Workforce Pell Era: Building the Infrastructure for Short-Term Credentials
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- [00:03]
A
This session was recorded live at the 2026 ASU GSV summit in San Diego.
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B
Thank you all for joining us. My name is Alison Griffin. I'm going to be moderating the session today about wiring the Workforce Pell era, building the infrastructure for short term credentials. I'm, I am coming to this conversation as a contributor with Forbes magazine and also a role as an investor in Colorado in short term credentials. And so some of that flavor may come through in our conversation, but we're going to just jump right in. We will not have an opportunity for questions as part of the panel. So I just wanted to set that expectation as we kick off our conversation today. But I'm going to introduce our panelists. And all the way down on my left, Portia Pratt. She's a senior policy analyst with the National Governors Association. Lee Lambert is the Chancellor and CEO of Foothill De Anza Community College District. And Kristen Holquist, the founding partner and CEO of HCM Strategists and also the lead federal negotiator of the negotiated rulemaking session on Workforce Pell. So we have an incredible lineup for you all today, and we're going to jump right in. And I'm actually going to start, Kristin, with you. We're going to set a foundation. I know that there are colleagues in the room who know about Workforce Pell, but we may have colleagues in the room who don't have the full history and context. So I'm wondering if you can start off by telling us how did Workforce Pell come to be and then what are we looking at as the foundation of that program? Perhaps potentially as we really kick it off here in July.
- [01:58]
A
Sure. Good morning, everyone. It's great to be here. I do wear a couple of hats, so I'll name them now and then I'll jump into this conversation. It'll help you kind of see where I come from as I share some insights. So I am, as Alison said, I lead this policy consulting firm focused on post secondary education and career competitive learning. And we publish annually a report on on the short term ecosystem that's occurring in the 50 states. And we do work directly with states on a variety of issues. I'm the past chair of the board of the Metropolitan State University, Denver, and they were the guilty culprits of nominating me for negotiated rulemaking. And I was the primary negotiator representing public colleges and universities in that process. And I do have a career that includes working at the Department of Education. So I knew enough to know that saying yes to Negotiated rulemaking was going to be watching paint dry for for 10 business days. So in terms of the arc of workforce Pell, let's go back. I kid you not. Let's go back to about the same time as the Higher Education act amendments that created the Pell. So in the 70s, one state put its own money into short term credentials and that was Iowa. But thereafter there really wasn't much growth. Along comes the spellings Commission. In 2007 it was six. Excuse me. It was something that I contributed to as a staffer when President Bush had Margaret Spellings as his Secretary of Education. And that report brought attention to what they called non traditional students. But really recognizing that more and more students in post secondary education were adult and they were juggling work and they were not going to school as full time dependents. And so that then beget a review by the College Board and a suggestion by Dr. Sandy Baum that we have two Pells, we have a Pell for adults and we have a Pell for traditional age students that began to socialize an ecosystem that then caught up from the state level and particularly from. We had a group of leading community college system heads, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and I think it was Indiana. But they came together in something called Rebuilding America's Middle Class. And their point was AACC is not representing us. We want to see Pell in the hands of more working adults who are getting education in smaller increments than the Pell Grant is eligible for. That coalition called for a Workforce Pell and that was 10 years ago. And that shows you how long it can take for a bill to become a law. And really it was. There have been several bills introduced with versions of the Workforce Pell. This one that passed in what's our budget reconciliation known as the one big beautiful bill, largely a tax extenders package, but we found some savings in the loan program that they directed to a number of purposes and that's when we got the Workforce Pell. It's not a version that looks like those prior bills. And we'll talk a little bit about what is in that version of what it means.
- [05:07]
B
Thank you, Kristen. Really appreciate that. The history and the reminder that this is not something that just happened in January. It's actually been a conversation that's been going on for decades. Portia, I'm going to turn to you and ask why governors have stayed interested in this issue across administrations. Sure.
- [05:30]
C
So good morning everyone. I'll give a little bit of background also about National Governors Association. So we are the only bipartisan membership organization serving the governors across all states and territories within the center for Best Practices, which is where I sit. We both support governors, kind of see ourselves as an extension almost of their research arms, providing support to their education policy advisors, workforce policy advisors, et cetera. We also create program programs and opportunities for them to engage around policy areas that they have either expressed as an area of interest or that we anticipate being one that they'll be doing a lot of thinking about. We also provide a lot of connections to technical assistance and we provide technical assistance ourselves. And so in thinking about why Workforce Pell is is important, it's in the name, it's the workforce piece of it. Governors at the end of the day our interested in supporting their constituents. They're interested in growing talent, keeping talent and creating opportunities within their borders for learners and workers to self actualize to pursue the education and career pathway that they are interested in and leads to families sustaining wages. Governors are interested in economic success and prosperity within their states and territories and Workforce Pell helps meet that. But we are at an interesting point where less and less is education just going to a four year and pursuing that degree and continuing on. Right? It looks like a mix of education and workforce. Short term credentials are the name of the education and career game for most learners. The majority of students are also working while they are in school. And it's important that governors are taking advantage of opportunities to meet those students where they are and supporting them through that process so they can go out and get that job that matters to them so they can, you know, create an environment where they can support their family, grow their family and again remain in the state or territory that they are in. So governors are interested in it because it supports their constituents. It allows them to say we have the lowest unemployment that I have ever seen and we are keeping students in school if they want to do that. But we are also providing pathways for them to pursue the workforce opportunities that they are the most interested in.
- [08:04]
B
Thank you, Portia. And as you were sharing that, it just struck me that in a world where we have very few issues that members across the aisle from one another can agree on, I would argue that Workforce Pell, both at the federal level but also across the states has become one of those issues that actually our Republican and Democrat colleagues have to the table have come to the table on. I'm going to come back to you Kristin, just really quickly. I know you mentioned negotiated rulemaking. I imagine there are some colleagues in the room who know exactly what negotiated rulemaking is. And there might be some colleagues in the room who don't. And so maybe give us just a brief overview of what that process both is and was like. But also last week, I believe, public comments were due to the department on this final rule which will implement workforce Pell. Can you give us a sense then of, like, what happens next? Where are we in the process?
- [09:07]
A
Okay, good. Multiple part question. All right. So negotiated rulemaking in the Department of Education is a privilege extended in that particular federal agency to help the field engage and advise on how to implement a particular statute. It's not required. The Trump administration didn't need to do this. It's great they did. They're actually running a negotiated rulemaking process right now. Different stakeholder groups are named, and then representatives are nominated, and they select a slate of primary and alternate negotiators. All of us are required to sit in a room like this with beautiful views. The Department of Education has no cafeteria. They have bathrooms that they did keep clean, but it was empty. So we sat in this empty building. They broke our negotiated rulemaking into two. Like, we called it a play in two acts. The first act was on workforce Pill, the second act. And we did that before the holidays. And then we came back from the holidays and in the new year, right back, first of the year, we tackled the rules around accountability. So they took those two parts. There are other higher ed parts of the one. Triple B put it in front of us. And they did their homework. They actually proposed the rules in advance, and they gave us those to review in advance. So we had little meetings beforehand. There's no public meeting laws that we violated. We talked about, where are we? We heard from a lot of stakeholder groups who said, can we get on a conference call and tell you how we feel you should engage in these issues? And then we had access to all the public comments, and the department came in and they had a professional negotiator. They had a. Excuse me. They had a professional negotiator who was a Department of Education employee, career staff. They had our assistant secretary, Jeff Andrade, represented. They had a lot of people from Department of Labor, particularly in this workforce session. And then they had all of us sitting at the table. It's public and there are cameras. So what would happen is we would just like in a public meeting, we'd flip over our card and we'd offer our comments. They wanted us to offer them as specific as possible. So we honored that. And after the first meeting at a bar, we came back and gave them 87 suggestions of how to change their regs. And they were very earnest. But about Wednesday, they said, enough, like, we're done. Whatever you don't get in by the end of the day, we're done hearing from you. And their goal was to try and get unanimous consensus. And that can be achieved if someone abstains. And in the case of both sessions or both acts of the play, someone abstained. But we were able to accomplish unanimous consensus. One of the tools of accomplishing unanimous consensus that the department used are caucuses. And you might have read, if you read the trade press, that those were particularly used when the federal government was negotiating which programs are going to be counted among. I think there's like eight or nine. But a very discrete number of programs could allow graduate students to borrow more than the new statutory limits. So they used caucuses, closed door, no press, where the department and particularly the undersecretary would sit there and tell us, you want this, you're going to have to give that. And so we had a little bit of that back and forth. What I will tell you is Workforce Pell and that first act was creating something from scratch. And the lead contributors to not only the recommendations, but some of the compromises was the head of the statewide workforce board appointed by the governor. And the governor's the statewide agency who runs a short term credential program statewide in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So it's different people than you're used to seeing in Title 4 negotiated rulemaking, where you'll often hear the student financial aid administrators very weedy about regs, giving the most, having the most to contribute. This really shows that there was a lot of contributions from states in how this program came together.
- [13:06]
B
Thank you for that overview. And I'm going to turn to Lee now because, Lee, I know you have been following the issue of Workforce Pell, but more importantly have been following the progression of this rule. And so my question coming out of negotiated rulemaking is what did we win? What did we lose? What is still left to be resolved?
- [13:28]
D
Well, I think just overall, we're grateful that Workforce Pell got passed. Let me first start there. I think that I would have hoped we'd have more flexibility in terms of how it's framed, because right now it's eight weeks to 15 weeks. And it doesn't account for a lot of different types of innovative programming that already exists, like truck driving. Truck driving is the largest employment category for men in almost half of the US States. So there's no funding for those individuals to get that CDL so it doesn't account for that. You can also become a roofer in less than one week training. Aren't those high demand, high wage opportunities? So I think that's part of the challenge. And then you get onto the other side of the you have programs that have already been developed and created at community colleges that are, you know, semester or less. This doesn't help account for that either because what we're seeing is students will only want to come for that semester or only want to come for. So it's like it's almost splitting the difference. And so that's where I was hopeful that we'd have more flexibility. And this is not going to allow that to happen. But it does give us opportunities to at least start to move down a path around workforce foul.
- [14:51]
A
So what Lee is saying is Congress really had a lot to say about how they structured this program. And so we negotiators had very little room. We can only color inside the lines. Congress writes. So Congress said it will be this long. It will be. We have these outcomes metrics associated with you may finally hear them as guardrails. But those outcome metrics were defined and they define what's in the numerator and what's in the denominator. Usually Congress paints with broad brushes. Whatever reason, that night when they were writing this, they got very detailed. And so we didn't get much. There wasn't much flexibility to have. We asked, for instance, can you please include state higher education executive agencies in the development of this recommended list? And they said, nope, Congress didn't call for it. We're not going to allow it. So I think it's both a posture of the department as this rulemaking was approached, but also of Congress. You will do it this way.
- [15:45]
B
So, Kristin, your mention just now of why can't state higher ed executives be involved in this process brings me to my question. Because the new law designates workforce boards and not higher education institutions as the governor's mandatory partner, if you will. And so, Portia, I'm curious. Right. Many would argue that governors are often the most powerful lever in workforce policy. And so what are states actually doing in collaboration with their workforce boards with governor's offices on the implementation of Workforce Pell? Can you give us a sense of what's happening across the.
- [16:31]
C
Okay, we're back. So one, we have a Workforce Pell Implementation Readiness Academy. And we've been working with nearly 40 states and territories exploring the challenges associated with implementation, both that they were anticipating and the very real challenges that they were Having we talked about data, we talked about program approval and eligibility, we talked about partnerships, we talked about what came out of negotiated rulemaking, et cetera. And by and large, data is the big challenge that governors and their advisors and the folks that are responsible for implementing it are thinking about. Ultimately, Workforce Pell, it's a data issue. Everything hinges on having strong data infrastructure to determine whether the wages that they are receiving are appropriate, whether the, the short term credential that someone is pursuing actually leads to labor market outcomes that this statute is requiring. And so there is a huge gap between just the qualifications of Workforce Pell and where states and territories are broadly in their data systems, thinking broadly about their longitudinal data systems, but then specifically about once, like enhanced wage records, specifically connected to labor market outcomes. There's also great variation, right? And some states are really poised to create programs that meet Workforce Pell, others are building some from scratch. Some are deciding, hey, maybe I won't participate when as soon as it's available, as I take time to figure out how to build a framework that actually works within my state territory context. So there's a lot of variation to the piece about workforce. The workforce board being the only kind of required partner in this. Some of the first actions that we saw states and territories take was to incorporate their SHIO or a higher ed agency or some other type of higher ed representative into a working group of some sort or some task force or implementation body. Because Workforce Pell is an extension of Pell. It is a higher ed program originally. And the folks who are thinking about the students that are served by those programs and the folks who know how it's going to operate on the ground at institutions which are responsible parties for administering these programs is higher ed. And so states knew. States and territories knew off the back, I have to do this. And from there we've seen a lot of other steps taken, really dependent on where they are envisioning their priorities and where they're seeing challenges. States that are really solid in their longitudinal data systems focusing on different program approval processes. We're seeing some states put out legislation where they are figuring out if they want to put their program approval up for public comment. There are some states and territories that are deciding which programs fit for WIOA versus fit for Workforce Pell and are trying to divide programs across those funding streams. So we always say at NGA there 55 ways to do anything, because there are 55 states and territories and we're seeing huge variation. But ultimately they're rising to meet this moment and trying to do what's best within their context and is really going to serve the workers and learners in their state or territory.
- [20:08]
B
Well, exactly what you just said about 55 different ways of doing something. I feel like at least given the time that I've spent around federal policy issues and interaction of federal policy with state states, this is one of the first times that we will potentially see 55 ways of implementing a new federal program.
- [20:26]
C
We definitely will. And there are again, some states who are thinking about this as a pilot year. Like I'm going to test it out. And that's something that I think is really nice about the kind of on ramp period. It does give states and territories the opportunity to try, fail and then try something else. And we don't usually see that. We don't see that a lot. And given that everyone is trying this for the first time, I think there's a lot of room and opportunity for innovation too. So I'm excited to see what happens at least in this first year.
- [20:59]
B
I love that. And we've heard state perspective and certainly Kristin, your federal perspective. Lee, I want you to talk about the practical sort of implications, give us some insights of what Portia has described happening sort of 55 different ways. What's happening in California.
- [21:20]
D
So one of the nice things about being here in the state of California is work was already being the tracks were being laid. Not necessarily that there would be work for its bell, but the governor had defined some key sectors of the economy that they wanted to strengthen, to accelerate, to put bets on and to anchor what happens here. As you all know, we're the fourth largest economy in the world. And so how California goes, the rest of the nation is going to go, if you think of it in that way. So we were fortunate to have those sectors defined. And then the governor also passed a career master plan so that again, setting that next brick in place. The legislature is already moving through Sacramento, a bill around workforce Pell. So again, all these pieces are being layered in. I think where we still have room to grow is really strengthening the relationship of the workforce and the community colleges and bringing more of that balanced perspective to the table so that we better understand of our current programs that we have. These are ready to go. And then what should be those new ones we ought to be thinking about to help power the future of California's economy.
- [22:41]
B
So you said it's sort of this idea of getting ready to go. So what happens on a Monday morning when the switch turns on July 1st? Right. That we're going to start to See this program launch in some states, maybe watch in other states. What does this do? As a college president, what are you expecting to happen on your campus?
- [23:08]
D
So I think about it in three ways. I think first of all, I'll say it depends. I'm a recovering lawyer, just so that's a common phrase for us lawyers. But there'll be those who just probably aren't interested in doing anything right. And then you're going to have some who will think of this as just an incremental enhancement to what they already do. It's that Clay Christiansen sustaining innovation kind of thing. And then you're going to have districts who say this is truly a disruptive innovation that really opens up the opportunity to redesign not only for workforce Pell and our workforce, for our entire educational model. So let me tell you why I say that. So think of Apple Music. We can right now, right, disaggregate the music and put it on your playlist and choose it short term. Pel if we thought about it in the same way also legos. Legos. Every piece snaps together to create something beautiful. But so we should be thinking about our units of learning in the same way that we can snap them together. Stackable, etc. And then universal design. So when you're building a program, you build this in mind into the program of study to begin with. So then it makes it easier to do that LEGO effect as well. And then ways some of you may use Waze, I think comes back to the data point, right? The data is all about the intelligent layer that allows us to navigate not only for the employers, the learners, the educators. We need that layer to be in place and to harness that kind of WAZE capability. So I think the data is going to be essential. Putting that infrastructure and then you get into this whole piece about the quality. I think if you think about it that way, that's where the disruption can come to redesign a whole way of thinking about workforce PAL.
- [25:09]
B
So I love the idea of disruption and one of the most, I feel like one of the most opportune moments for disruption would have actually been to include some of our short term education and training providers who may not be in the accredited college space because they're the ones who are actually in many places delivering some of these short term credentials, whether they fall within the current eligibility requirements of 8 to 15 weeks or not. They're the ones who are on the eligible training provider list through their departments of labor. Can any of you speak to the rationale as to why both the Statute, but also the regulations did not extend to programs and providers that may be outside of this accreditation framework.
- [26:09]
A
So it was in, I remember I told you there were a couple bills in congressional sessions that preceded this one. It was contemplated in the past. There are two reasons it wasn't. It's when cost and quality combine to create kind of a consensus that we will do no harm. Cost people are concerned that this, that, that if you open up the market to new providers too much, you'll blow a hole in a program that already has $100 billion structural 10 year deficit. And so I think there were some conservatives in the House were very concerned about that and wanted to put what they some cost parameters around this. And then on the other side of the aisle you had some people concerned about bad actors and associating innovative providers whose techniques of delivery just by nature of who they are outside the higher education accreditation system are suspicious. And so keeping it to title four was a way of protecting consumers from bad actors. But it's a combination of those two interests.
- [27:18]
B
And so then there's really no opportunity for states in the way that they are implementing Workforce Pell to bring those providers into the program currently. Is that correct?
- [27:28]
A
There's, there's, and I'm going to say this, yes, that's correct. Except for one there. In any program that the governor recommends to the secretary for approval, 25% of the educational delivery can be by another provider. And that was a point that was negotiate the table and ratified in the draft rule. And we should probably see, you know, people wanted it higher, but it does allow, for instance, you know, accreditation. There's a lot of, excuse me, a lot of manipulation of a continuous semester that occurred in the rules. So you could do apprenticeships with Workforce Pal. An employer can be up to 25% of the academic delivery and that program can still be eligible. But that's the cap that's there. I think the important thing to kind of then step back. And I love what Lee said when he was talking about I really would say it's short term credentials and the short term credential ecosystem that's disruptive. And Workforce Pell is one paid for and it's a little pay for. And I say little because if you look at HCM strategist annual reports going back to 2023, you can see the step wide increase, stepwise increases since the pandemic in states investing in short term credentialing. And she's part of the group that leads the significant investments in Colorado. We're talking $8.5 billion in 111 programs in 31 states. CBO estimates that in the first two years, Workforce Pell will cost about $230 million. We're talking less than 0.03% of financing for short term credentialing in this country would come out of Pell in the early years. So this is not the Workforce Pell is not the disruptor. It's a recognition that Congress now recognizes we need to do something that's learner centered and less than a traditional degree program.
- [29:15]
B
So, of course, that leads me to wonder, even Portia and what you're seeing across the conversations in states and with governor's offices. Are there states that are, I'm going to say, like building only for Workforce Pell, or are you seeing that there are states that are thinking more broadly of which Workforce Pell may be a component of their overall strategy?
- [29:39]
C
Yeah. So it's definitely a mix. And I want to go back to what Kristin said and what Congress is signaling here. They're also signaling that education and workforce should be together. Right. It's a continuous career pathway. You get a little education, you go to work, you go to work, you get a little more education. And that is what learners have been doing for decades anyways. It's just now things are sort of kind of catching up and we're seeing a mix. Right. There are states that are creating new programs and they're going to let it run for that year because you do have to have a year demonstration of the program being effective and running before it can qualify. And then you have states that do have programs that are already ready to go. It just depends. I think states and territories are excited about new money, but it is very important to note how small the amount of money is and how precarious Pell funding has been for years. It's important to think about the types of students that are served by Pell, by Workforce Pell specifically. We're not talking about just anyone who wants to earn a short term credential. We're talking about specific types of students and learners. And so states are also thinking of how they can blend Workforce Pell with other benefits offerings to support the learner and worker who actually qualifies. Workforce Pell is just one tool in the toolkit of those supports. It is not the end all, be all to provide everything, who's pursuing everything to someone who's pursuing a short term credential. But when you think about someone who also qualifies for snap, for example, they are going to qualify for Workforce Pell. There are creative opportunities for states to blend those funding structures together so that way a person's needs are supported so they can effectively enroll in and complete a credential and then join the workforce and get those wages.
- [31:42]
B
I'm really curious when you talk about the blending of education and workforce at the state level, Portia, how are governors ensuring that like one does not overshadow the other? Like where are there, are there trade offs that are being made sort of between agencies? Is there like a leadership? Like is there a directive from leadership? Like, just give me a sense of how those two maybe historically siloed entities are now coming together to deliver either on this program or in the broader short term credentialing space.
- [32:18]
C
Yeah, and I want to underscore the historically siloed piece because I think the part that's also not being spoken about as we blend workforce and higher ed or post secondary is the cultural difference between the two and how they think about the person that they are serving and how that is associated with what success looks like for the individual pursuing that. So in workforce they are thinking about, not clients. There is another word for folks who are participants in wioa, right? They're a participant and they are thinking about how quickly can we get this person a job, education background, a student? I'm thinking about, well, what might we add to their education pathway? You know, what might be next for them, what program can they enroll in? We're trying to bring those two together and create a pathway for them. So the first piece of this for many has been how do we agree on what success of these programs looks like, who we are targeting and how we can make sure that everyone walks away from this satisfied. I think it does begin with those working groups, those task forces that I mentioned earlier. There is a recognition that those conversations need to happen and they will continue beyond July 1, which again grateful for the on ramp period because it's going to take a long time to figure out how to to put those together. But I think that they are states and territories are cognizant of that and are trying to create more spaces legislatively for sure, where both are at the table and they're bringing employers to the table and some of the sectors that they are really interested in having short term credentials available for and supported through Workforce Pell for so they can be honest about what's needed, where those trade offs are. Who is responsible for making sure that this pathway works?
- [34:14]
B
I want to bring it back. Okay. Yes. Can I build off of that, absolutely.
- [34:17]
D
That's okay. So let me preface my comments first. So I was on the national association of Workforce Boards, so community college, sitting on the board there. But I've also sat on the local board in Pima county when I was in Arizona and I currently sit on the board here locally with NOVA Works in the Silicon Valley area of California. So I'm a firm believer of the collaboration, it must happen. So with that said, higher ed, we've got to own the fact that we have failed over 40 million Americans who have some college, no credential of value. We have to own that. That's not the workforce system, that's us. So I've been working tirelessly when I was in Arizona to figure out a way that we could partner together to start to at least serve my community of Pima County. So we did a design thinking approach and we sat down with adults who either had their bachelor's degree and couldn't get a job or had come to us and had to stop out. And what we found was they blamed us for their conditions, right? Full stop, they blamed it. No surprise of what's happening in the US right now. Right? But anyways, put that aside. So what we figured out is by creating these short term programs that we did at Pima Community College, we combined a technical skill that we worked with employers with. So that co creation, I think is critical and a durable skill. Critical thinking, teamwork, whatever the employer thought was valuable for them. And then all of a sudden when we went live, we had within less than a month over 3,000 individuals who wanted to take these short term programs. The employers committed to interview anyone who went through it because they were part of the design. This is, I think, one of the ways forward. And that's why I'm excited about Workforce Belt and the importance of us working together. Awesome.
- [36:19]
B
Thank you. Lee Portion.
- [36:20]
C
I add one piece to that. So there was. There's so much uptake because again, we have to think about who today's students are, right? We are not talking about the person fresh out of high school that is supported by both parents and you know, going off to get their degree. They are today students. They are increasingly parents, right? Young parents with children who need child care, who have limited time. They are increasingly incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. They are folks who have military experience. And so when you think about that, the urgency of a short term credential, the urgency of education in general is so much more acute for that population being able to jump in there, get that credential and join the workforce quickly so they can continue to provide for their family and meet those responsibilities. Hugely important for the students that qualify for Workforce Pell.
- [37:16]
B
What an important point. Just, I mean, front and center for all of this is the learner is the student. And so thank you all for giving voice to that. I'm going to wrap us up and I know we are in a incredibly politically volatile moment. We are nationally states what has the potential to derail this work, but what has the potential to actually scale and grow? What we've been talking about today, particularly around serving students who are coming to a post secondary pathway, maybe through a different channel than they would have historically.
- [38:05]
C
I can start. I was having a conversation with my former boss yesterday and she was like, you know, we are at war. Just in case people forgot that is the context. And so it's kind of hard to prioritize and think about all of these things when these very big and urgent things are happening in the background. That turmoil, that uncertainty, not only because of the war, but all of the other changes that are happening can derail anything at this moment because it feels like everything is on fire. We also have a lot of gubernatorial elections coming up this year that can either solidify a lot of things in states and territories states or it can upend it. It's hard to have continuity with that kind of change in leadership. Pell funding is precarious, as I said before, so there's a lot of that. But I think, and this is going to sound very hope focused. I think that despite all of that, governors want to do right by workers and learners. They really do. And it is that that we are seeing promote legislation to keep these things going despite their transitions. It is that investment, those statutes where they are mandating folks work together and come to the table who might not otherwise, that gives me hope that this is going to continue, continue through all of the craz. The leadership is invested in it. And we all know if the governor tells you to do something, you're more likely to do it, especially when it's legislated. And so I think that's the thing. Sounds mushy, but I do think in this time of chaos and turmoil and concern, that desire to do what's right for the constituency is the thing that's going to allow programs like Workforce Pell to really benefit the people it's designed for.
- [40:04]
B
Fantastic. Thank you, Kristen. I'll go to you and then Lee, I'll give you the last word.
- [40:08]
C
Sure.
- [40:08]
A
I'll go fast. And to say that, you know, Congress and governors and I before this I worked at NGA with Congress and governors should their policy should support and advance the leadership of presidents like I'm sitting next to. And I think there are two elements in statute and that I think have a potential to derail the vision that the president described here today. One, the legislation assumes that 70% of completers will be in three years. So when this full, when the on ramp is fully in place, 70% of completers will be in a job and they will be in a job in field. I think there's a real chance we don't have data systems that allow that in field and that 70% in a job means that only 30% of students can either have not finished their program and or are enrolled in more Another stackable credential. We fought hard at the negotiating table to get students who continuously enroll in that next Lego brick to be removed from the denominator. The department wouldn't give it to us. They put it in that draft Reg. I know that there's a lot of feedback they received last Friday to please accommodate this. What will they do? Congress is already signaling we didn't mean for you to do that. That's why we put stackability as a term and a condition in the statute. So if they don't get this right meaning. And then the other one is they really. I'm sorry, I'll let you pivot and I'll see if I can remember my brain
- [41:50]
D
part of is the lead up to this. Right. There was not universal acceptance amongst the higher education community and our partners on the four year side didn't necessarily were big fans of this. So I think that 70% becomes an important part of that piece because that is too high of a standard because if we had the same standard on the degree side there probably would be a lot less of us around. Right. So it's like here we're treating the least advantage in our society with the highest of standards that don't apply to the rest of our society that are happening to benefit from. So that's what I think can derail us is the unfair standard being set. And then we have our university partners who weren't necessarily bought into this and then we left out our other private for profits out of the equation too because they're bringing innovations that test us to do better. So I think all of that has the potential to upend us.
- [43:01]
B
Well, I am grateful for all three of you and your leadership and your education for us today on a very timely issue. Thank you all so much for joining the panel. Thanks for being here.