AACC | Welfare Changes Threaten College Training Programs

The Bush Administration’s proposed changes to the welfare law would sharply curtail community colleges’ role in educating welfare recipients, critics say.

The current law requires that states have 50 percent of their adult welfare populations involved in programs that count as work for at least 30 hours a week. Single parents with children younger than six are allowed to work 20 hours a week.

The Bush plan would increase the percentage of welfare recipients who must participate in work activities to 70 percent by 2007 and would increase those work hours to 40 per week. Single parents with young children would increase their work hours to 24 a week.

Critics say that these requirements decrease the flexibility of states to create programs that move people from the welfare rolls.

Central to the argument is the definition of what counts as a work activity. Currently, states can count in their work participation rates unsubsidized and subsidized employment; up to six weeks a year of job searches; and up to 12 months a year of vocational education and a limited number of other education activities, said Jason Walsh, director of field operations for the Workforce Alliance, a lobbying group for workforce development issues.

The Bush plan restricts participation in education activities to 16 hours within the 40-hour work week participation requirement, but only after the first 24 hours are spent in another work activity. In addition, it limits participation in job training activities on a full-time basis to three consecutive months once every 24 months. The plan more narrowly defines work activities to unsubsidized and subsidized work, on-the-job training and community work experience programs, Walsh said.

Community colleges will struggle to create programs that fit within the restrictions, said Elaine Baker, director of workforce initiatives at the Community College of Denver in Colorado.

“It’s possible to do it, but it makes the design and implementation of programs that would fit this daunting,” Baker said. “The programs at Community College of Denver fit this model, but only because our welfare-to-work programs combine work internships with classes.”

Keith Bird, chancellor of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, believes that the agility of community colleges will allow them to create programs that fit the parameters in the Bush proposal. But there are other concerns, he said. “Our institutions are agile enough, so it’s one thing on delivery; I’m just concerned that this may not be the best public policy.”

If the Bush proposal becomes law, Bird and Baker fear that participation rates in education and training will decline sharply.

Welfare case managers put people into activities that count toward participation rates, and “education and training do not automatically count toward your participation rate,” Baker said. “It’s allowable, and depending on the number of individuals in vocational training at any given time, it may be countable, but there’s an uncertainty there that discourages case managers from making referrals to vocational programs.”

That makes the Bush proposal even more dangerous, Walsh said, because there are already too few welfare recipients involved in education and training. “Not many TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) participants over the last five years have been in postsecondary education,” he said and added that approximately 5.6 percent of welfare adults nationwide were involved in training and education in 2000.

Studies show that education and training are crucial to moving people from poverty to self-sufficiency, Baker said.

Education and training provide not only specific job skills but life skills that provide job mobility and security, Baker added. They also help workers find jobs that pay at a level that will provide self-sufficiency.

Community colleges’ participation in the debate surrounding welfare reform reauthorization is crucial, Bird and Baker said.

In Kentucky, a state that has been lauded for its extensive education and training programs for welfare recipients, “We’re all involved in trying to, dare I say, lobby,” Bird said.

Baker advocates the same for community college administrators. “Our best hope is in our state administrators,” she said. College representatives should target members of the Senate and House to make them understand the link between education and training and career advancement, Baker said.

“Now that we have an opportunity that shows how important this is, we need to be proactive,” she said.

Angela Manso, legislative associate at the American Association of Community Colleges, said there is a need for bipartisan legislation that includes provisions that are broader than those in the Bush proposal.

“We are making the case for community college education and training programs from the standpoint that it helps states’ economic development,” Manso said. “Without that trained workforce, businesses are not likely to stay or relocate to those states. What is needed is more flexibility to use our programs, not less.”