The long-awaited debut of Workforce Pell has finally arrived. Later this month, Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana will begin doling out federal financial aid dollars to eligible students in an eight-week clinical medical assistant program. When they do, Ivy Tech will become one of the first colleges in the nation to accept Pell Grants as payment for certain short-term career-oriented programs.
After years of policy debate, Congress in summer 2025 passed legislation that allows federal Pell dollars—financial aid for low-income students—to be used on programs between eight and 15 weeks long rather than a full year or longer. That triggered a yearlong sprint for federal and state leaders to figure out how to work together to determine which programs would qualify for approval by state governments and the U.S. Education Department. The rollout has been slow so far; since the policy took effect on July 1, ED has approved 21 programs across six states, including Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas.
But for colleges, the work doesn’t stop when a program is approved. College leaders need to make sure that their financial aid officers and their software systems are equipped to process federal grants for short-term programs. They also must communicate the new funding opportunity to prospective students and encourage them to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid—something students haven’t historically needed to do when enrolling in short-term, career-oriented programs.
“This is a pretty substantial policy change and policy implementation ask of states and institutions and even ED,” said Iris Palmer, director of the community college initiative at New America, a left-leaning think tank. Now, as programs are being approved, “this is going to take a huge lift from [college] financial aid offices.”
Colby Shank, vice president of financial aid and student accounts at Ivy Tech, said the college submitted an application for its certified medical assistant program on July 7 and was approved on Aug. 19.
“We were very excited, but then we also recognized that that’s just kind of the beginning,” Shank said. There were “a lot of questions on how we take approval to implementation.”
When Ivy Tech begins accepting Pell Grants for the program in late October, the grants will fund up to a dozen students on just one of the community college system’s 19 campuses. Shank said he expects two other campuses to accept Workforce Pell for the certified medical assistant program soon.
“It’s rewarding to be able to offer a new avenue for financial aid when, on the short-term-program side, the options have historically been fairly limited,” Shank said. “But right now, we expect it will be a lot of manual work.”
Shank explained that Ivy Tech’s software system isn’t set up to process financial aid for short-term programs, which will require financial aid officers to manually identify eligible students, calculate their Workforce Pell award based on their need and the length of their program, and personally disburse the funds to students.
“We’re starting to explore what it will take with our software systems to scale this, which is what we want to see happen,” Shank said. “But in the meantime, to get us off the ground, we plan on doing quite a bit of this work manually just so that we can serve students as quickly as possible.”
Iowa Central Community College, whose 14-week emergency medical technician program was the first in the country to be approved for Workforce Pell, hasn’t faced the same financial aid system challenges as Ivy Tech because it offers a Pell-eligible commercial driver’s license program, said Stacy Mentzer, the college’s vice president of instruction. Their system was already able to calculate financial aid based on clock hours rather than credit hours, so it was easier to make the adjustments necessary to offer Workforce Pell, she added.
The college is currently recruiting students for its next cycle and encouraging them to fill out the FAFSA to see if they’re eligible for Workforce Pell; it will begin offering the course when enough students have enrolled, Mentzer said.
Some colleges are more focused on making students aware of the new program.
Janet N. Spriggs, president of Forsyth Technical Community College in North Carolina, said she is trying to figure out how to inform as many students as possible about the new funding option for the six programs Forsyth has had approved: welding, certified nursing assistant (levels one and two), fire academy, emergency medical technician, and electrical line worker. She said Forsyth Tech plans to enroll students with Workforce Pell starting in January.
“It is another pathway forward for our students to be able to get the skills that they need for careers that are going to give them family-sustaining and family-thriving wages,” Spriggs said. “The most important part is not letting this wonderful opportunity be a secret.”
Spriggs said Forsyth is working with high school career coaches, employers and community organizations to spread the word about Workforce Pell. Although she knows it won’t help every student or support training for every career pathway, “for those that it will, it’s going to have a huge impact,” Spriggs said.
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