Most campuses are aware of the pending proposal by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to radically overhaul the federal government’s procedures for awarding grant funds. This initiative changes the current “Uniform Guidance” procedures into a formal regulation, which gives them the force of law. It also applies these new regulations across the government and therefore to all federal grant recipients.
The perspective of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is that, while the guidance represents a legitimate effort to rationalize certain aspects of the awarding of federal funds, this pales in comparison to the overwhelming potential negative impact of the changes.
Among other things, the regulation would:
- Introduce an acute degree of political influence into the grant-awarding process. This influence would no doubt be used by both political parties when able.
- Undermine the predictability of the grant-making process, making it more challenging for institutions in deciding whether to devote limited resources to developing applications.
- Prevent Congress from ensuring that appropriated funds are spent as intended — which, by extension, challenges AACC’s legislative advocacy efforts as well as broader public accountability.
- Codify a variety of controversial administration policies on “DEI” and other “social issues” that have been promulgated in a variety of Executive Orders and other vehicles. These, in turn, have complicated community colleges’ ability to access federal funding.
AACC will submit comments on these proposed regulations in advance of the July 13 deadline, and campuses can submit them directly if they wish, as follows.
Key points to include in communications:
- The proposed regulation subjects the grant-making process to an inappropriate and counterproductive degree of political influence. It undermines the time-tested principles of merit and peer review that have served community colleges, the government and the public well over time.
- The proposed rule introduces a high degree of uncertainty into a process that should be reliable. In particular, it allows federal agencies to terminate grant commitments without advance warning and without appropriate justification.
- Many community colleges have limited means to develop complex grant applications. The considerations outlined above would make it more problematic for colleges to devote resources to write applications.
- The regulations will compromise congressional and therefore public accountability, by effectively transferring authority for determining the allocation and distribution of federal grant funds from the legislative to the executive branch.
- Many of the policies that institutions would be required to certify that they are following are controversial and have unclear legal status. Institutions are currently required to comply with a variety of civil rights and other legal and constitutional protections, and this provides sufficient safeguards against unlawful actions by grantees.
Even more important than providing comments to OMB, which as of July 2 had received more than 143,000 submissions, is for you to make sure that your members of Congress know about your concerns. In doing so, it is always useful to remind legislators of the challenges colleges face in accessing federal support.
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments on this complicated and far-reaching issue.
