The new legislation to expand the eligibility of the Peel Grant for students enrolled in short-term skills and job training programs has extensive support in Congress, although it excludes students who attend these programs. Online, a provision of some community university leaders and online education advocates call an error.
The legislation, which the House of Representatives approved on February 4, is now addressed to the Conference Committee, where legislators will hammer a final invoice. The bill approved the Senate last year, but without an amendment, the bill of the house was included, which contains the expansion language of the GEGA subsidy. The language requires allowing the Pell subsidies to apply to any short-term program with "at least 150 hours of timeout time during a period of at least 8 weeks", as long as it is not mainly delivered online.
CINZIA D'IORIO, Dean of Continuing Education at the Bergen Community College, said it is delighted with the possibility of expanding the eligibility of the GEG subsidy for short-term programs, That she said that she has benefited many students in her institution. But D'Iorio questioned why online programs have been excluded, especially since many high-quality, short-term online programs have been created by community colleges in the middle of the pandemic. D'Iorio said that Bergen CC has seen a strong signal in interest in short-term online certification courses, which would be excluded from the expansion of the Pell grant.
more popular
d'Iorio said that" Especially for adult students, people have realized that they can get great online education ... If you need financial help, you should "T is limited to how you will learn to achieve your goals." < P> Russell Poulin, Executive Director of the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, which focuses on improving the quality and scope of digital learning programs, said it was disturbed by disposition excluding all online programs. He cited solids Short-term online programs, such as cybersecurity boot fields and other certificate programs S, with good successful results of the students, such as those offered by the University of Western Governors and many community colleges.
Poulin said the legislation should be based on the results of the program compared to the modality. googleg.cmd.push (function () googleg.display ("dfp-ad-article_in_article"););
"It is very disturbing that they did a general exclusion of distance education," Poulin said. "I have seen this several times, where there is this wrong idea that anything that is fully online must be offered by a for-profit institution."
Many for-profit institutions have a history of success metrics from poor students. But Poulin said that most of the online programs offered today come from non-profit players as community colleges. He said that the "objective of the authors of the legislation is a bit extensive, and probably be hitting the institutions that do not want to try to hit."
The Employee of the Education and Labor Commission of the House of Representatives, said the amendment. Originally the language was negotiated in the Senate and provided by the Senate Managers of the Legislation, suggesting that the expansion of the GEnder subsidy will remain on the final invoice.
Related stories
"the key to guarantee the transition from young Americans to perfection in races Good tasks is to ensure that high quality education and work training is affordable and accessible, "The sponsor of the Amendment, Representative of Andy Levin, a Democrat of Michigan, SA
