With a new presidential administration and more than 80 freshman members of Congress, nearly 1,400 community college leaders, including 125 students, convened in Washington, D.C., Monday to kick off the 2025 Community College National Legislative Summit.
“It is during these years of transition that it’s most important for us to join together in Washington,” said ACCT Chair Rich Fukutaki, a member of the Bellevue (Wash.) College Board of Trustees. “There are dialogues happening nationwide about the role of government of education and the value of higher education… It is necessary that we demonstrate the impact federal dollars have on our institutions, our students, and our local economies.”
“We know we have opportunities and challenges ahead in securing support for our community colleges,” ACCT President and CEO Jee Hang Lee told NLS attendees. “Every one of you is here because you value higher education. As long as we stay focused on that value, our mission will succeed.”
With 68 new members of the House of Representatives and 14 new senators entering Congress, attendees were reminded of the importance of advocacy. “These elected officials who are new to Congress need to hear about the important work on our campuses,” said Carrie Warick-Smith, ACCT vice president of public policy.
ACCT and American Association of Community College (AACC) public policy experts reviewed the annual 'green sheet' of community college priorities, which includes opposing risk-sharing proposals, maintaining funding for the Pell Grant Program in the face of budgetary shortfalls, making Pell awards available for short-term training programs and tax-free for students, and reauthorizing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
“We believe this is a time of great opportunity for our institutions and our students,” said David Baime, AACC senior vice president of government relations. “We think there are some meaningful openings… [to] achieve goals we’ve been working on for some time...The opportunities are very real. We think there’s a lot of progress we can make.”
These efforts may be buoyed by improving enrollments in higher ed, particularly at community colleges. Keynote speaker Doug Shapiro, vice president for research and executive director, Research Center of the National Student Clearinghouse, noted that fall 2024 community college enrollment grew by nearly double the rate of public four-year institutions, driven by both dual enrollment students and adult learners over 21, helping reverse pandemic declines.
“Students who lost the most ground during the pandemic are the ones who came back the strongest,” Shapiro said.
While enrollment growth at community colleges is stronger than at four-year institutions—with short-term certificates the fastest-growing credential, followed by associate degrees—community colleges remain the one sector of higher education which has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. “But with one more year at this rate, they’ll be very close,” Shapiro said.
Also Monday, Washington Post columnist Heather Long provided an overview of the underlying economic factors that will shape policy in the years to come. Despite a strong economy and low unemployment, high inflation, unusually low hiring rates, and the disruption of AI are driving anxiety and uncertainty as workforce needs continue to shift dramatically.
“My advice from the economic side is to really talk up how the programs you are championing can really build up the labor force,” Long said.
NLS attendees were also updated on a variety of programs offered through ACCT’s Center for Policy & Practice, including supporting institutional adoption of the SNAP Employment & Training program, the ongoing Kids on Campus childcare partnership with the National Head Start Association, and the ACCT Registered Apprenticeship Project, which is developing a cohort of colleges preparing to offer RA programs in emerging areas such as nursing, IT, and advanced manufacturing.
NLS participants also heard legal perspectives on recent executive orders; perspectives from key congressional staffers looking ahead to the 119th U.S. Congress; a discussion of federal workforce policies and regulations; an innovative 'Netflix for books' model from Cengage that improved student success at the Community College of Beaver County in Pennsylvania; and student trustees throughout the country deliberated on their priorities.
The 2025 Community College National Legislative Summit is made possible in part thanks to sponsors Cengage, Mongoose, Edamerica, and Ellucian.