Nearly 100 community college presidents, government relations directors and other campus administrators convened last week in Washington, D.C., at the American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) annual Advocates in Action, an intimate, off-the-record seminar with top higher education policymakers, experts and advocates.
Attendees were able to ask questions and gain insights to inform their meetings on Capitol Hill with members of Congress and their staff. Much of this year’s advocacy focused on the funding process.
Below is a recap of the program, to help AACC members appreciate the breadth of offerings at the event, and some of the key insights provided by speakers.
Kicking things off
First up was Terry Hartle, senior fellow at the American Council on Education (ACE), who shared perspectives from his nearly 30 years heading ACE’s government relations and public affairs division. His remarks highlighted the unprecedented challenges facing higher education as an industry and the importance of lobbying in the nation’s capital. Hartle was followed by a panel that featured top lobbyists in the higher education policy arena.
Vince Sampson from Cooley LLP and Lauren Schwensen from California State University each outlined where they see the biggest challenges and opportunities for policy reform in the current political landscape, drawing on decades of experience serving as professional staff members on the Hill and in the executive branch. They reminded attendees to thank members of Congress for sparing the Pell Grant program from student eligibility cuts last summer.
Kimberly Jones, president and CEO of the Council for Opportunity in Education, also spoke in depth about the uncertainty facing federal TRIO programs and the importance of lobbying to protect those programs.
Comments from administration brass
Attendees also heard from Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, who focused his comments on the Trump administration’s higher education priorities, including implementing the higher education components of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) reconciliation legislation (including workforce Pell), providing regulatory relief, promoting competition, reforming accreditation and safeguarding taxpayer investments. He spoke at length about the administration’s commitment to addressing fraudulent federal student aid applicants and thanked colleges for their partnership in ensuring the integrity of the Title IV program.
Ali Mortell, director of research at Blue Rose Research – a polling and research firm that supports progressive candidates – gave a brief presentation on observable trends and shifts in voting behavior in the 2024 presidential election, broken down by gender, race and education level. Mortell reiterated the “diploma divide” in American voting patterns. She also detailed which messages have shown to cut across partisan and demographic divides, including those messages related to positive support for local and state funding for community colleges.
Attendees heard next from Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Levin asserted that Congress has, over time, ceded substantial policymaking responsibilities to the executive and judicial branches. He gave a historical analysis of the incentives that have catalyzed successful federal legislative activity and how those incentives have increasingly been weakened. Attendees engaged in a lively Q&A on how to repair those incentives and what reforms would facilitate a more productive legislature.
Capping the first day’s programming was Melanie Storey, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). She detailed the slate of financial aid changes included in OBBB and the significant undertaking the department will face in implementing them. Speaking from her previous experience as director of policy implementation and oversight at the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), Storey highlighted the challenges facing a reduced FSA staff and addressed potential future operational challenges.
AACC also provided a briefing on the community college legislative agenda to prepare attendees for their meetings on Capitol Hill, highlighting the association’s appropriations priorities for fiscal year (FY) 2026, continued concerns about FY 25 federal disbursements and support for the Tax-Free Pell Grant Act, the College Transparency Act, and greater investments in workforce programs and apprenticeships.
Hearing from Hill leaders
The second day of Advocates in Action started early on Capitol Hill, where attendees heard from policymakers and high-level congressional staffers. Rep. Mike Baumgartner (R-Washington) started by lauding the good work done by community colleges. As a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, he pledged to use his time on the committee to pursue solutions that allow community colleges to “do more with more” instead of “more with less.”
Next, attendees heard from Tim Walberg (R-Michigan), chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, who began with a personal reflection on the value of community colleges before sharing his perspectives on improvements made in OBBB and areas of continued policy interest for the committee, including transparency, innovation and being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Florida), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, followed with some candid advice to college leaders on navigating the current funding climate and building relationships with congressional offices to benefit their institutions. Among the questions attendees asked was the uncertainty around FY 25 funding disbursements.
Insights from staffers
Following the representatives, attendees heard from high-level education and appropriations staffers. Cyrus Artz, who serves as a senior policy advisor in the Office of the Speaker of the House, spoke about proposals that were debated in OBBB, the current funding environment and the challenges associated with crafting policy on behalf of an entire party caucus. He gave advice on how community colleges can build support by focusing on the sector’s affordability proposition and connections to the workforce. He also cast a warning on the looming Pell Grant shortfall.
Next, attendees heard from a Democratic counterpart, Tonia Wu, who serves as a policy advisor covering education, workforce and other issues for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). She gave her own postmortem of the reconciliation debate, shared Jeffries’ higher education priorities and gave practical advice for how to best build relationships with members of Congress.
Finally, attendees heard from Alaura Ervin, education policy director for the majority staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), who shared her approach to building a higher education policy agenda for the entire Senate Republican conference, how she works with down-dais members of the HELP committee and beyond, and current priorities for her boss, HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).
The last segment of the programming focused on a topic at the front of everyone’s minds: federal funding. A panel of key House and Senate appropriations staff shared their perspectives on working across the aisle and across the chambers to craft funding legislation, continued challenges in finalizing FY 26 appropriations, and how appropriators are navigating new actions from the Trump administration regarding the spending of appropriated funds.
Advocates in Action concluded with a conversation between representatives from the lobby firm Capitol Hill Partners, including Bettilou Taylor, who has a long background as a former staffer for the House and Senate Appropriations committees. She placed current funding discussions in their historical context and gave her opinion on the unprecedented discretion taken by the Trump administration in the use of appropriated funds.
