Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, is considered one of the nation’s most workforce-forward institutions, offering hundreds of short in-demand programs like dental billing and coding, collaborative robotics, and plumbing and pipe fitting. 

Despite that extensive catalog, only three programs qualify for the federal government’s new Workforce Pell initiative, which expands the long-standing need-based grant program to select short-term training programs: emergency medical technician training; BioWork, which trains biotechnology process technicians; and Mechatronics, a mechanical engineering certification program.

The Big Idea: Wake Tech is hardly alone. Across the country, states and colleges are sorting through tens of thousands of programs to determine which qualify for the new initiative, which for the first time unlocks federal dollars for students in short-term nondegree programs.

The short answer? Not many, at least in the initiative’s first year. Policy wonks have been predicting that for months, with the federal government itself estimating that only 184K students will qualify in the first year. Now, with states submitting qualified programs to the U.S. Department of Education for approval, those projections are proving to be spot on.    

Eligibility for Workforce Pell, created as part of the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law, is intentionally narrow. To qualify, programs must: 

  • Last between eight and 15 weeks, which amounts to anything from 150 to 599 instructional hours. 
  • Lead to high-wage, high-skill or in-demand jobs.
  • Maintain a 70% completion rate.
  • Maintain a 70% job-placement rate.
  • Lead to a credential.
  • Meet a handful of other criteria, including operating for at least a year and demonstrating that they stack to a credit-bearing certificate or degree.

Only 1% of the N.C. Community College System’s short-term programs meet these qualifications—roughly 330 out of more than 50K. As of mid-July, 29 of the state’s 58 community colleges have submitted 116 programs to the U.S. Department of Education for final approval.

North Carolina’s submissions are part of a nationwide review by states now underway. Throughout July, states have been determining which programs to forward to the U.S. Department of Education for final approval. The department recently told Politico it hopes to announce its decisions by the end of the summer, but the precise date is unclear.

It’s also unclear when students will begin receiving money to apply toward short-term programs. For that reason, at least in the near term, Workforce Pell money won’t be a quick fix for students looking for financial aid. “It’s a pretty complex program to implement and has very prescribed parameters,” says Iris Palmer, director for the community colleges initiative at New America.  

Still, state officials and policy experts say Workforce Pell matters as much for the direction it signals and the changes it could usher in as it does for the number of students it will initially serve. By tying federal aid to completion, employment, and earnings outcomes, they say the initiative places new emphasis on whether short-term credentials lead to demonstrable economic value.

In North Carolina, officials are viewing it as a “shift in how the federal government is thinking about higher education accountability and what it means to be prepared to enter the workforce,” says Andrea DeSantis, assistant secretary for workforce solutions at the N.C. Department of Commerce. 

But, she adds, that shift is in its infancy. 

Federal Rules, State Decisions

Though federal regulations establish the broad framework for eligibility, states are still making important policy choices about how the initiative will operate—and those choices vary.

North Carolina identified high-demand occupations using its labor market data and required colleges to align proposed programs with those occupations. It limited eligibility to programs already approved as Eligible Training Providers under the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), ensuring they had already undergone some level of quality review before being considered.

DeSantis says the state intentionally built its policy around existing workforce infrastructure rather than creating a new approval system. It’s using the existing N.C. Star Jobs System, which assigns ratings to occupations based on wages, projected growth rate, and projected job openings. Programs eligible for Workforce Pell must have a rating of at least three stars.

The state updates those ratings each year, according to DeSantis, and community colleges and state agencies already trust and understand the system. She views Workforce Pell as aligning with work the state was already planning.

The initiative pushes state education and workforce development leaders to ensure “that what students train in after high school gives them a chance to enter the labor market, earn a family-sustaining wage, stay in their community—to be able to work and live,” she says.

While North Carolina leaned heavily on existing workforce systems, other states have made different choices about which programs qualify and how to judge them. Palmer at New America recently analyzed Workforce Pell policies in 11 states, including North Carolina, to identify those variations. Among her findings:

  • Criteria for eligible occupations: Most states, including Ohio and Michigan, are following the federal standard: acceptable programs must train workers for occupations that are high-skill, high-wage or in-demand. Texas and Minnesota, however, require occupations to check every box: high-skill, high-wage and in-demand.
  • High-wage occupations: Pennsylvania sets the lowest threshold, requiring an entry-level wage equal to 150% of the federal poverty level. Colorado and Tennessee set the highest, requiring occupations to pay at least 120% of the regional median wage.
  • Eligible providers: Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and Minnesota—like North Carolina—will only consider programs on their WIOA Eligible Training Provider List. Florida, however, will automatically approve any program on the state’s Master Credentials List and Targeted Occupations List. 

The differences may seem technical, but they could have a significant effect on which programs ultimately qualify, and, by extension, which students gain access to federal aid.

They also illustrate how states are using the discretion left by the federal government to tailor the program to their own workforce priorities, labor markets, and existing education systems.

The Price of Precision

The EMT training program at Wake Tech is one of just three short-term programs at the college that will qualify for Workforce Pell. (Photo courtesy of Wake Tech)

By far the biggest criticism from colleges about Workforce Pell is its stringent eligibility requirements. And even groups that advocated for the restrictions recognize they set a bar few programs will meet.

Some obstacles are buried in the fine print. Palmer says a colleague at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in North Carolina mentioned that the federal rule prohibiting colleges from outsourcing more than 25% of a program’s instruction eliminated several otherwise promising ones from consideration.

A survey by N.C. Local and Open Campus of the state’s 58 community colleges found that the narrow eligibility requirements left most institutions with just a handful of eligible programs. Thirty institutions didn’t respond, but among those that did:

Palmer says the narrow criteria prevent the federal government from opening up financial aid to programs that fail to lead to good jobs. “Going slow and treating it as a pilot phase is totally appropriate,” she says.

The result, however, is an initiative with significant promise that has a much narrower reach than some within higher education had initially envisioned. Take, for example, the popular workforce credentialing programs in high-demand fields that Wake Tech offers for free. 

“I would have hoped you’d have a better ratio than one out of 32 of those programs qualify,” says Scott Ralls, president of Wake Tech and former president of the N.C. Community College System. “If we limit it too much, we’re at risk of not grasping the opportunity that’s there right now.”

Another challenge for states and community colleges lies in data—or the lack of it. Most can’t access interstate employment and earnings records, leaving them unable to fully account for graduates who work in another state or for themselves. Those blind spots make it harder to prove that short-term programs satisfy the required 70% job-placement rate.

Colleges yearn for that level of accountability, Ralls says, “but if you don’t have the data, you can’t do that.”

Ideally, this realization will lead to a national movement to improve data systems, says Mark D’Amico, a professor of higher education at UNC Charlotte and an expert on nondegree programs at community colleges.

Workforce Pell’s program-length requirements could also encourage colleges to rethink the structure of their credentials, whether by extending or shortening existing programs or carving longer programs into several smaller components. That approach makes sense if the changes add value, such as adding a short clinical component to a certified nursing assistant program. 

But in February, Jeff Cox, the then-president of N.C. Community College System, warned against changing program lengths simply to meet federal guidelines. “We don’t want to create unnecessary barriers and increase the time to completion,” he said at a meeting of the N.C. Governor’s Council on Workforce and Apprenticeships.

Keeping the Goal in Mind

D’Amico’s research backs that up. A program’s failure to qualify for Workforce Pell doesn’t necessarily mean it lacks value for students and the workforce, he says. 

“A hallmark of community college responsiveness over time has been their ability to roll out short-term noncredit programs to meet immediate student and employer demand,” he says. That nimbleness is part of what has made community colleges indispensable workforce partners, even if some of their most responsive programs remain outside the initiative’s reach.

Ralls, too, worries that colleges may lose sight of the big picture if they fixate too much on just getting programs qualified for Workforce Pell. Community college leaders need to spend as much time thinking about building short-term workforce training programs that lead into further education and progressive career growth—which should be the ultimate measure of a program’s value.

The Workforce Pell regulations do require that eligible programs stack into a larger certificate or degree, but Ralls says that hasn’t gotten enough attention.   

“People who have been skeptical of short-term programs sometimes don’t understand about them being the gateway not just to jobs, but to next steps in programs,” he says. “That sometimes gets missed by those who have been critical of Workforce Pell.” 

Is Workforce Pell Worth It?

While Workforce Pell in its first few years won’t revolutionize how students pay for short-term programs, most college and state leaders Work Shift has talked with are hopeful about its long-term impact. They view this first year as a chance to identify the strongest short-term workforce programs, learn what makes them successful, and build on those lessons over time.

The strict eligibility requirements, Palmer says, create a laboratory of sorts. By focusing federal aid on programs that consistently produce strong completion and employment outcomes, states and colleges can study what those programs are doing well and apply those practices to future offerings. As institutions develop new credentials to meet regional workforce needs, they can design them with those standards in mind, even if they’re not immediately eligible.

“You learn from those programs that qualify,” she says. “How do they get that 70% completion rate? How do they get that 70% placement rate? What are some of the strategies that states or institutions are using to get there?” 

Community colleges also have a practical reason to engage. They spent years lobbying Congress to extend Pell Grants to short-term workforce training, making the program a significant policy victory even in its limited form. College leaders say participating now gives them the experience and the evidence to identify which provisions of the law work well and which should be revisited if Congress considers expanding the program in the future.

“We have the opportunity now to really help people transition into new job opportunities that we sorely need,” Ralls says. “So all of us collectively need to focus on making this program work.” 

“It’ll be a missed opportunity if it does not work.”