Jill Biden: Push for free 2-year colleges failed
WASHINGTON — During his first address to Congress last spring, President Biden said that Jill Biden, the first lady, would lead an effort to fulfill his administration’s promise to provide two years of free community college to all eligible students.
That provision, tucked inside a massive social spending package that has struggled to win the support of all the senators who caucus with the Democrats, was the first lady’s signature legislative initiative. But on Monday, Jill Biden addressed a summit of community college leaders and confirmed what her husband has recently suggested: The plan has no future in a bill that Democrats are trying to whittle down in order to salvage.
“One year ago, I told this group that Joe, my husband Joe, was going to fight for community colleges,” she said at the Community College National Legislative Summit in Washington. “But Joe has also had to make compromises. Congress hasn’t passed the Build Back Better legislation — yet. And free community college is no longer a part of that package.”
The writing had been on the wall. Democrats had moved away from the provision, and Jill Biden has previously said that the current political climate meant that it might not be the “right time” for free community college to pass as part of a social spending bill. But her remarks Monday were her starkest acknowledgment yet that a measure she had championed is dead.
“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Jill Biden said. “Still, like you, I was disappointed. Because, like you, these aren’t just bills or budgets to me, to you, right? We know what they mean for real people, for our students.”
And then she added an aside that was not in her scripted remarks: “It was a real lesson in human nature that some people just don’t get that.”
It is unusual for first ladies to weigh in on the defeat of a West Wing policy issue, but Jill Biden, a community college English professor, was personally invested in the issue.
She spent her first year visiting community colleges, but did not campaign for the support of Democratic senators and House members who wanted to pare back or eliminate the provision outright.
Democrats are still exploring expanding tuition assistance for low- and middle-income students. But how big a program they will support, and how far that approach will go toward increasing access to higher-paying jobs — and economic competitiveness overall — remains to be seen.