PHOENIX — Financial help may be in sight for recent high school grads who find themselves short of the money they need to go to community college.
The Senate Education Committee agreed Tuesday that $10 million should be set aside for scholarships designed to provide what the bill’s sponsor calls the “last dollar” needed to make the difference for a student between a post-secondary education and none.
There was no dissent; the measure, House Bill 2638, still needs approval of the full Senate.
It’s about more than aiding students, said sponsoring Rep. Aaron Lieberman, D-Paradise Valley. He said the pandemic has sharply cut enrollment at community colleges throughout the state, but he figures that trend can be reversed.
Tuesday’s vote came as the House Education Committee, also without dissent, resurrected legislation designed to allow community colleges to offer some four-year degrees.
HB 2523 had cleared the House last month on a 57-3 vote. But to date it has not gotten a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee, where it is assigned.
The new version seeks to get around that by taking the language and stripping it on to an unrelated measure on school expenditures that already cleared the Senate.
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That means if the now-revised SB 1453 is approved by the full House — and there’s no reason to expect that won’t happen, given the prior vote — it then goes back to the full Senate for up-or-down review, bypassing the ability of any committee or chairman to kill it.
Economic development cited
Data shows that community college attendance statewide is down by about 40,000 from pre-pandemic levels, Lieberman said.
He said his bill isn’t simply about putting more bodies in seats to generate revenues.
Fewer community college graduates means fewer people getting the skills that Arizona employers want and need, Lieberman said. And he said that dampens economic development.
HB 2638 is targeted specifically to anyone who graduated from an Arizona high school last year or will graduate this school year who, for the moment, is not going to college anywhere. The goal is “to find those missing students, get them back enrolled.”
Each would get up to $3,000 toward the total cost of a year of schooling, Lieberman said.
To be eligible, someone would have to qualify for a federal Pell Grant. These are available to anyone with family income less than $50,000 but are generally reserved for those with income below $20,000.
Lieberman said these grants, with varying amounts up to about $6,500, can help with tuition. But he said what students ultimately get — Pell Grants can be less than the maximum — may not be enough to cover tuition and other costs, ranging from books to transportation.
That, he said, can be the difference between a student going to college or not.
Lieberman thinks $10 million is the most he can seek and get approved. But he figures it could help about 3,000 students a year and train them for jobs Arizona employers need.
“It is really desperately needed to help fix that kind of broken pipeline,” he said.
Targeting aid to students, not just institutions
One thing helping to build support is that the Legislature has curtailed state aid to community colleges.
Some of that was strictly to balance the state budget. But Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, noted that while there are still some unrestricted dollars flowing to rural community colleges, there has been no such aid to the Pima and Maricopa systems.
Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, D-Tucson, said she knows why. “It all was political,” she said.
Gonzales said some Republican lawmakers were peeved because those two community college systems had agreed to let “dreamers,” students enrolled in the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, pay the same tuition as others who qualify for resident status.
That differential existed until the Arizona Supreme Court declared the practice illegal. But even the current budget proposal by GOP Gov. Doug Ducey provides no operating state aid to the two largest systems.
Sen. Tyler Pace, R-Mesa, said he likes this idea better. “It’s targeting individuals and helping them better their lives,” he said.
He said much of the debate at the state Capitol is about funding institutions.
“Well, the purpose of funding an institution is to fund the individuals to achieve that educational goal,” Pace explained. “And a bill like this specifically approaches that task.”
Boyer said the legislation could also help those who ultimately want to go on for four-year degrees but, for whatever reason, get their start at a community college.
He said he’s an example of that, having done a year at Pima Community College and a year at Paradise Valley Community College before going to Arizona State University.
