Interview with Dr. Bradley Custer and Dr. Jenna Sablan

Today we have two guests, Dr. Bradley Custer from the Center For American Progress, and Jenna Sablan from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. They’re here to talk about student success and college completion. Right now, congress is trying to pass President Biden’s bill that would include a college completion fund worth $62 billion over 10 years. The house currently has the bill down to $9billion over 7 years. This new proposal for a federal pot of money would benefit states and institutions in funding student success. The popular name for this idea is the College Completion Fund. A big part of the bill focuses on free community college, but it also goes a step further in focusing on getting through college. In a sense, we’re moving from access to completion. The higher ed field should be excited because of the many options available for the funding and the spotlight on evidence-based programs.

The bill calls for 30% of the funds to be dedicated to evidence-based programs. The rest of the funding can be spent on a wide range of things like comprehensive support services and emergency grant programs. Institutions and states will have to make their case as to why these programs are worthy of federal funding. The program would be run through the state, and they would be responsible for distributing funds and evaluating programs. The states would report back to the Department of Education in order to chart data and see how programs are progressing and making an impact. This bill gives priority to less resourced institutions as well as institutions with minority groups. Having the states in the driver's seat ensures a focus on replication and scale. States can decide to keep money at the state level for programs and practices, or can be distributed down to individual institutions. In order to take advantage of these funds, the state has to participate in the free community college side of the bill and in doing so would have to match funds for that.

If you want to signal your support for this, use the hashtag #collegecompletionfund. We also encourage college students to contact their own representatives in congress about free community college, increases to Pell Grants, and the College Completion Fund.