ACE, Higher Education Groups Urge Key Protections in Workforce Pell Rulemaking

The comments, submitted in response to ED's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on "Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell," address several areas where the proposed implementation could fall short of the law's intent.

Protecting Students Who Pursue Further Education

One of the groups' central concerns involves how job placement rates would be calculated for institutions offering Workforce Pell Programs. Under the proposed rules, programs must demonstrate a 70 percent job placement rate 180 days after completion to maintain eligibility, but students who continue their education after completing a program would be counted as failures to place.

ACE and the other associations argue that this approach runs counter to congressional intent. The OBBB was designed in part to encourage Workforce Pell students to pursue additional postsecondary credentials, making the penalty for doing so difficult to justify.

As ACE noted in its comments, "institutions have no way of controlling the decisions of the students who complete the program, and continued education ideally should be rewarded, especially given Congressional intent for Workforce Pell students to pursue future postsecondary educational opportunities." According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 63 percent of certificate completers go on to pursue further education. As Inside Higher Ed reported this morning, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), who helped craft the Workforce Pell legislation, raised similar concerns in his own comments, warning that the proposal would "skew placement rates for high-quality programs that lead to stackable credentials."

Standardizing the Appeals Process

Because the proposed rule leaves the structure of appeals processes entirely to individual states, ACE warns that institutions - particularly those with branch or online campuses operating across state lines - could face 50 different and potentially inconsistent standards. The coalition urges ED to establish baseline requirements allowing institutions to contest job placement and completion rate data, gubernatorial determinations, value-added earnings calculations, and separate sSecretary determinations, with a minimum of 30 days to submit supporting documentation.

Safeguarding Pell Grant Access for Students

Significant concerns were also raised about proposed changes to how institutions package the Pell Grant when students receive non-federal scholarship and grant aid. Under the proposed rule, if a student's non-federal aid meets or exceeds the cost of attendance, the institution would be required to return all Pell Grant funds disbursed for the entire academic year and cancel future disbursements. One community college administrator observed in that institution's comments that the proposal "creates a cliff effect in which a student whose aid package exceeds cost of attendance by one dollar loses Pell eligibility entirely."

More than 7 million students currently rely on the Federal Pell Grant, and ACE's comments assert that the proposed remedy is disproportionate and could seriously jeopardize the ability of the most financially vulnerable students to persist to completion.

Respecting the Master Calendar

The groups also urge ED to abide by the Higher Education Act's master calendar requirements, which dictate that final rules published in a given year take effect no earlier than July 1 of the following year.

When Congress has historically intended to waive those requirements, it has done so explicitly. No such waiver was included in the OBBB. Adhering to the timeline would give institutions, students, and families adequate time to understand and prepare for the changes.

What Comes Next

ED must now read and respond to the more than 400 comments received before issuing a final rule. While the Workforce Pell expansion is set to take effect July 1, 2026, funding to short-term programs is not expected to flow immediately: eligible programs must exist and meet eligibility criteria for at least one year before students can access Pell dollars, and both governors and ED must approve participating programs.

The administration's FY 2027 budget proposal, which preserves the traditional Pell Grant, signals that Pell is now a political priority for this administration, making the details of how Workforce Pell is implemented all the more consequential.