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The House Rules Committee has shot down an attempt to add legislation expanding the Pell Grant to workforce training programs that run between eight to 14 weeks to a must-pass national security and military bill.
Sponsors of the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act sought to attach the bill as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025. It was one of more than 1,300 proposed amendments to the legislation. In the end, the Rules Committee, which met Tuesday, decided that just 350 of those amendments were considered “in order,” or relevant to the underlying legislation. Pell expansion didn’t make the cut.
The Rules committee defeat doesn’t spell an end for “short-term Pell,” which would require institutions that are subject to an endowment tax—a few dozen wealthy private colleges—to reimburse the Education Department for unpaid student loans in order to pay for the expansion. But inclusion in the NDAA was seen as one of the best chances for the bill to pass before the end of the year.
Most higher education associations opposed the amendment push because of the plan to pay for the expansion. Labor unions and consumer protection groups also advocated against the amendment because of the pay-for and concerns with the policy itself, questioning the value of short-term programs and their outcomes for students.
“Only in Washington would anyone think it was a good idea to use bipartisan legislation intended to support our troops as a vehicle to bankroll some of the same programs and institutions that have left our service members and veterans with useless degrees and saddled with debt,” Student Borrower Protection Center Policy Director Aissa Canchola Bañez said in a statement. “This effort was clumsy and shortsighted and we are glad to see it go down in defeat.”
