Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Free college off table, first lady concedes
First lady Jill Biden acknowledged Monday that two years of tuition-free community college is no longer part of the president’s Build Back Better agenda, telling a group of educators that she is “disappointed” the provision was dropped because of the “compromises” her husband must make.
The first lady addressed the status of President Joe Biden’s social spending legislation during an appearance in Washington before the Community College National Legislative Summit, a gathering at which she delivered a more optimistic message in 2021.
“One year ago, I told this group that Joe was going to fight for community colleges,” Biden told the group Monday. “But Joe has also had to make compromises. Congress hasn’t passed the Build Back Better agenda — yet. And free community college is no longer a part of that package.”
Jill Biden has taught at community colleges for decades and still does — at Northern Virginia Community College, where she’s a professor of English and writing. She is the first first lady to work outside the White House in her professional career.
The first lady expressed frustration over a political process that she says treats legislation like a football to “pass or pivot” while real people, such as her community college students, await assistance that would help them build better futures.
“Governing isn’t a game. There are no teams to root for or against, just people, Americans from all walks of life who need help and hope,” she said.
The president said at a news conference last month that the Build Back Better legislation was not going to pass Congress intact, an acknowledgment of opposition to some provisions by two members of his party: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who object to the scope and cost of the measure.
Manchin recently declared the legislation “dead.”
Joe Biden, however, sounded an optimistic note: “I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now and come back and fight for the rest later.”
The roughly $ 2 trillion package includes provisions on health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws.
There has been little sign of progress recently, with no active negotiations between the White House and Manchin or Sinema. For the time being, Democrats lack the votes to pass anything without the help of some Republicans, given that Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., is not expected to return for weeks after suffering a stroke recently.
The president is continuing to promote major parts of his agenda, however, in public appearances.
LOST STUDENTS
Community colleges, which offer two years of lowcost academic studies and skills training, have long been seen as gateways to higher education and an important part of the public education system in the United States.
Jill Biden is a longtime advocate of waiving tuition to help the students who attend these schools. She worked on the issue during the Obama administration, when her husband was vice president.
On Monday, she talked about having to lend a book to one of her students last week because he couldn’t afford to buy it before payday, and about a student mom who eventually dropped out because her child got covid-19. Both students would benefit from tuition-free college, child care support and other provisions of the stalled legislation, she said.
In fall of 2019, the most recent year for which the American Association of Community Colleges has data, community colleges enrolled 41% of all undergraduates nationally.
But enrollment has been declining at many of the country’s nearly 940 public community colleges in recent years, concerning educators and policymakers who fear that the career and education prospects for students, many of them from low- and moderate-income families, will be harmed.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in January that enrollment has fallen 13.2% at public two-year colleges since 2019. And it has fallen almost 30% since 2011, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which monitors enrollment trends.
Biden pledged that the president would continue to advocate on behalf of community colleges.
“Governing does have one thing in common with sports,” she said. “When you get knocked down, you have to get back up. When you lose, you work harder and you come back for more.”
“Joe doesn’t quit. He doesn’t give up,” she said. “He is keeping his promise to rebuild our middle class, and he knows that community colleges do just that. He knows that you are our greatest resource and our best investment. He will keep fighting for us.”
LEGISLATION AS FOOTBALL
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden was “speaking from her heart.”
Myra Gutin, a Rider University professor and author of “The President’s Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century,” noted that first ladies don’t generally take on Congress or call out their failures, but that Jill Biden “must have felt that she could not remain silent” given the issue’s importance to her.
“Her dismay is genuine and she was not going to paper over the lack of action,” Gutin said.
Jill Biden, who grew up in Pennsylvania, opened with a few words about her love for sports and Philadelphia’s pro teams before getting to her point.
“I’m a first lady for all Americans, but when it comes to teams, my heart belongs to the Philadelphia Eagles, the 76ers, the Phillies and the Flyers,” she said. “The competition, the crowds, the rivalries, I love it all.”
“But too often, we treat what happens in our nation’s capital like a sports game too, wondering which team will score the most points with voters,” she said. “Legislation becomes a football to keep away from the other side, and Americans get lost in the playbook.”
Biden said she and the president both knew getting tuition-free college wouldn’t “be easy,” but she was still disappointed “because, like you, these aren’t just bills or budgets to me.”
“We know what they mean for real people, for our students, and it was a real lesson in human nature that some people just don’t get that,” she said.