The Shortchanging of Vital Institutions of Higher Ed

Public community and technical colleges are quiet engines of American mobility. They open their doors to students who might never set foot on a traditional college campus and give them the skills, confidence and credentials needed to propel themselves into the middle class. So why are state and local officials standing silent as the federal government strips approximately $350 million from the very institutions that serve the nation’s most vulnerable learners?

Many community and technical colleges qualify under federal law as minority-serving institutions (MSIs) or Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) because large portions of their students are Black, Latino, first-generation college attendees or low income. There is also a special designation for predominantly Black MSIs that must enroll at least 40 percent Black students and 50 percent low-income or first-generation college students; Hispanic-serving institutions must enroll at least 25 percent Hispanic students. These designations exist for a reason: These schools carry a disproportionate share of responsibility for educating historically disadvantaged students.

Yet the federal government has abruptly reversed decades of bipartisan policy that acknowledged and supported this mission. The new position suggests that open-admission minority-serving colleges, which accept all who apply, are somehow discriminatory. That logic defies common sense. These institutions still serve all Americans, especially the populations Congress intended to support. So why are they being penalized now? And why should state and local governments be expected to fill the gap when they did nothing to cause it?

As a former president of a Georgia state technical college, I saw firsthand how federal MSI funding lifted all students: Black, Hispanic, white, disabled, adults returning from incarceration or job dislocation, and first-generation learners alike. Resource labs, tutoring centers, counselors who helped older or academically fragile students, and contextualized English and math programs that tied instruction directly to welding, IT or building-automation programs — these investments helped students stay enrolled, stay on track and graduate into careers that changed their lives.

That is why leaders in higher education and public officials should sound the alarm. Without HSI funding, “students will lose the critical support they need to succeed in the classroom, complete their degrees on time, and achieve social mobility for themselves and their families,” said Mildred García, chancellor of the California State University system, whose enrollment is nearly half Hispanic.

But the harm does not stop there.

The Trump administration is redirecting much of the money taken from MSIs to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), tribal colleges and universities, charter schools and civic education programs. HBCUs and tribal colleges absolutely deserve increased investment; they have been underfunded for decades. But shifting money away from the broader category of MSIs — institutions that serve more Black and Hispanic students than HBCUs and tribal colleges combined — is a zero-sum reshuffling that pits mission-driven colleges against one another and fractures long-standing educational ecosystems.
Across the country, community colleges, technical colleges, HBCUs and MSIs have built powerful pipelines that take underprepared students, give them structure and support, and collaborate to create realistic pathways out of poverty. “Articulation agreements” that govern course credit transfers between schools, shared faculty and shared facilities allow two-year students to transfer into four-year programs with confidence and preparation. These alliances should be strengthened, not undermined through competitive funding raids.

So what should state and local leaders do?

First, they must recognize the danger of shifting funds from one type of institution serving disadvantaged communities to another. This kind of resource cannibalization is shortsighted and harmful. No community benefits when colleges serving the same populations are forced into cutthroat competition.

Second, states should address their historic underfunding of land grant HBCUs, which the Department of Education has documented. Repairing those inequities is essential, but it should not come at the expense of the colleges that educate the largest share of poor and working-class students.

Finally, state leaders — Democrats and Republicans alike — must press Washington for more support for both MSIs and HBCUs. Together, these colleges educate hundreds of thousands of young people industry desperately needs. And as every policymaker knows — or ought to know — it is far cheaper to educate people than to incarcerate them.

Higher education should not be used as a wedge to foster resentment or division. It should be a bridge to work, to citizenship and to opportunity. I urge public officials at the state and local levels who believe in education as a pillar of our democracy to demand that the federal government restore MSI funding — or provide the resources themselves. The moral return is high, and the economic return is even higher.

---

Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.