Last week, Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) introduced H.R. 4196, the Community College Emergency Stabilization Fund Act.  The bill would provide $700 million to states to offer one-time grants to assist community colleges in maintaining, or hiring additional, faculty and staff.  The bill also provides $50 million for a federal competitive grant program for career and technical colleges to maintain, or hire additional, faculty and staff.

This bill comes at a critical time – as people go back to school to upgrade their skills, community colleges are faced with increases in enrollment and a lack of resources.  According to the American Association of Community Colleges, enrollment at community colleges for 2009 is already 10% above 2008 levels. At the same time, 32 states have cut the budgets of their public colleges.  This funding would ease the financial burden of hiring additional faculty to meet the new demand.

Reps. Larson and Hinojosa hope to have the bill attached as part of any jobs package that Congress may introduce in the coming months.  According to Congressman Larson, the bill will “create jobs immediately for teachers, career counselors, and other staff at community colleges that receive the funding. And second, it will help train our workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities in new and emerging fields that come out of our economic recovery.”

Tags: community colleges, Congress, federal legislation

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.