That New Workforce Pell Grant Rule Got Me Thinking About My Cousin Who Quit Community College
I was scrolling through my news feed this morning, waiting for my sad reheated yesterday’s coffee to finish heating in the microwave, when I saw the headline: U.S. Department of Education dropped the final rule for the new Workforce Pell Grant Program. I almost just skipped it, you know how those policy headlines go, all jargon that feels like it doesn’t touch your actual life. But then my cat knocked a blue pen off the counter right onto my foot, and while I was cursing and picking it up, I remembered Jax.
Jax is my mom’s sister’s kid, 24 now, has a two year old named Lila who draws on my walls with crayon every time she comes over. Two and a half years ago, he signed up for the 6 month HVAC certification program at the local community college out by the Walmart. He’d been working the oil change bay at the Jiffy Lube down the street from his apartment for three years, was making $15 an hour, and was sick of barely making rent. HVAC techs around here start at $28 an hour if you’ve got your cert, and Jax has always been good with that stuff—he fixed my leaky water heater two summers ago when I was panicking and the plumber quoted me $1,200, Jax did it for free, just bought a $25 part and ate a peanut butter sandwich at my kitchen table after.
I remember the family barbecue the summer before he tried to sign up, he was leaning against the grill, drinking a Keystone Ice, had a big grease stain on the front of his faded Alabama hoodie that he’s had since high school. Lila was just a newborn then, strapped to his chest, tugging on his beard. My uncle, Jax’s dad, kept asking him when he was gonna get started on the program, and Jax just kept shrugging and turning the conversation to the football game. Finally, after everyone else went inside to get chocolate chip cookies for dessert, he said to me quiet, “It’s 7 grand for the whole program. I got 1100 saved from extra weekend shifts. Pell won’t touch it ‘cause it’s not a full two year associate’s degree. Can’t get a student loan for that little anyway, and even if I could, I’m not gonna add that debt when I don’t even know if I can make the monthly payments after.” He ended up dropping the idea entirely, picked up more hours at Jiffy Lube, later moved to an independent shop making a little more, but still not enough to not stress every time the rent goes up.
This new rule changes that, right? From what I read, now Pell Grants can go to shorter programs—anywhere from 150 hours over 8 weeks up to a year, as long as they get you an industry-recognized credential that leads to a job. So all those HVAC, welding, phlebotomy, nursing aide, commercial driving programs that people actually want to do, that get you into a living wage job way faster than a four year degree, they can get grant money for them now. No one has to choose between working to pay rent and getting the training to get a better job, at least not on the tuition side. Sounds great, right? I texted Jax the link to the news story last night, and he texted back 20 minutes later: “That’s cool. Does it cover the whole thing? And can I do classes after work?”
And that’s the thing, right? It’s a good step, don’t get me wrong. I know a girl I went to high school with who wanted to get her CDL last year, the program was 8 weeks, $4,000, she worked at a daycare making $13 an hour, couldn’t come up with the cash, ended up staying at the daycare because she couldn’t afford to take time off to train anyway. This would’ve helped her. But it doesn’t fix everything. I saw a bunch of people pointing out that bad for-profit schools are gonna jump all over this, offer garbage programs that cost a ton and give you a credential no employer actually cares about, and suck up all that grant money for nothing. And even if you get into a good program at a community college, like Jax wants to do, what about the hours? Jax works 40 hours a week, his shift ends at 5. If the classes are 6 to 9 two nights a week, he can do that, but if they’re during the day, he has to cut his hours. Cutting 10 hours a week is $180 before taxes, which is exactly how much his rent went up this year. He can’t afford to lose that. The grant pays the tuition, it doesn’t pay his grocery bill while he’s in school. It doesn’t pay for Lila’s extra daycare if he’s in class when he’d otherwise be home with her.
I went to the community college’s open house last year when I was thinking about taking a botany class for fun, and there was a middle aged woman standing by the phlebotomy program table, crying quiet to the advisor. I overheard her say she worked night shift at Walmart, she’d been saving for a year to pay for the 12 week program, she was still $1,000 short, and she didn’t qualify for any aid because the program was too short. That’s exactly what this fixes, right? That woman could get a Pell Grant now, probably, cover that gap. But what if she can’t rearrange her night shift to make it to class? What if the program requires 20 hours a week of clinicals during the day, and she can’t just quit her job to do that? There’s no grant for that lost income.
I don’t know. I don’t mean to be a downer. It’s better than nothing, way better. A lot of people are gonna get to do the training they couldn’t afford before, that’s a good thing. It’s just that when you see people you love turning down a better life because of a thousand small, stupid barriers, a rule that fixes one of them feels good, but it doesn’t fix all the rest. People act like these big policy announcements are the solution to everything, but most of the time they’re just a start, if that.
Jax and his family are coming over for tacos tonight. I’m gonna help him look up the HVAC program at the community college after we eat, check if he qualifies now. I don’t know what’ll happen. Maybe everything lines up, he gets the grant, fits the classes around his shift, gets his cert in a year and is making enough to stop stressing about rent and take Lila to the zoo more than once a year. Maybe there’s some dumb fine print that means he doesn’t qualify, or the classes are only offered when he’s at work, and it’s just another thing that was supposed to help that doesn’t, not really. Either way, I got extra guac to chop and a cold six pack in the fridge, so it’s not a total loss. We’ll see.
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