After years of trying to get Congress to allow Pell grants to cover certain quality short-term workforce education programs, advocates finally got their wish when Workforce Pell passed via the massive budget reconciliation legislation signed into law on July 4.
But there’s still much to do before Workforce Pell is up and running at community colleges and other accredited providers for the 2026-2027 academic year. And Workforce Pell is just one of several changes that ED must implement that will affect community colleges, as outlined in a summary of the legislation by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act sets July 1, 2026, as the implementation date for Workforce Pell and other higher education-related provisions — such as changes to loan repayment options and a new accountability system — in the new law.
Neg-reg likely
The U.S. Education Department (ED) typically must use a process called negotiated rulemaking to promulgate Higher Education Act (HEA) Title IV regulations, though the education secretary can waive that requirement in certain circumstances, said Jim Hermes, AACC’s associate vice president of government relations. ED could also decide that some of the new law’s provisions can be implemented through guidance rather than rulemaking, though that seems unlikely for the more significant changes, such as Workforce Pell and the new accountability provisions, he said.
If negotiated rulemaking is used, it lengthens the time needed to issue a final rule, Hermes continued. To implement those rules by July 1 next year requires the publication of the final regulations by November 1 of this year, according to HEA’s “Master Calendar” provisions.
That means there is a tight three-month window to get the work done, from ED drafting rules, eliciting public comments, selecting and gathering negotiators for the key constituent groups to serve on the rulemaking panel and — depending on whether the panel members can agree — forwarding their recommendations to the department. (If there is no consensus, ED can draft and approve its own rules to implement the law.)
What if ED doesn’t meet the November 1 deadline? Then technically it can’t implement Workforce Pell and other parts of the new law by July 1, 2026. It could be another full year — July 2027 — before the regulations go into effect. For example, implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act was delayed beyond its statutory effective date, though other factors played a role, Hermes said.
Ground to cover
Though the bill specifies many of the requirements for Workforce Pell, the new accountability system and changes to student loans, there is still a lot to cover in negotiated rulemaking. For Workforce Pell, this includes guidance to determine what programs employers need (plus identifying data sources) and creating a system to review and approve programs that seek to participate in Workforce Pell.
For the accountability plan, Hermes noted that the legislation leaves ED to make final decisions on how small programs might be aggregated to achieve the minimum 30-completer cohort size, among many other details.
