This article was originally published in The Texas Tribune.
Students at five Texas community colleges can now seek the new Workforce Pell grants to pay for job training.
The community colleges recently received the stamp of approval from the U.S. Department of Education, marking the first time low-income Texas students can use the federal grants money for short-term workforce training.
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In East Texas, Kilgore College students can use the financial aid for pathways toward being electrical power linemen, phlebotomy technicians or pharmacy technicians. In North Texas, Weatherford College students can apply the grants toward training in HVAC, basic machining, and advanced machining.
Students at Central Texas, Texas Southmost, and San Jacinto can take advantage of the grant to enroll in the colleges’ programs for pharmacy technicians, structural welding and phlebotomy technicians, respectively.
“This was a true game changer in higher education,” said Tod Allen Farmer, the president of Weatherford College, of the Workforce Pell. “It’s going to allow a whole new group of citizens access to higher education that have never been able to afford it before.”
At least one in three Texas students have depended on the Pell Grant to get through college for more than a decade. The grants do not need to be repaid and typically go to families who make roughly less than $50,000 a year.
While the financial aid has typically been reserved for traditional degree programs, President Donald Trump’s budget bill last summer expanded the Pell Grant to cover short-term, workforce training. The Workforce Pell allows students to use the grants for programs that are as short as eight weeks.
Farmer characterized Workforce Pell as a win for the state’s economy, as more students quickly get trained up in fields that are clamoring for more talent. He expects the Weatherford programs eligible to accept Pell dollars will soon grow.
The Texas junior colleges had to prove their programs met federal standards before students could tap into the aid. Federal officials will continue to approve more schools for Workforce Pell on a rolling basis.
To qualify, workforce programs must be in high-demand, high-wage fields and have a track record of at least 70% of students completing the program and at least 70% finding jobs within six months after completion.
After Workforce Pell went into effect in July, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board officials asked the federal authorities to consider at least 12 programs for funding, David Troutman, a deputy commissioner for the agency, told state lawmakers during a House hearing in August. Texas joins Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska in the ranks of the first states to have such short-term programs qualify for the federal dollars.
Interested students should fill out the federal financial aid form to tap into Workforce Pell dollars. If they qualify for the Workforce Pell, students can expect to receive an average of $1,700, according to estimates from the U.S. Education Department.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.