Last weekend, Congress temporarily averted a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution (CR) to keep federal programs operating at current funding levels until November 17. However,  there is still much more work to be done to complete the FY 24 appropriations process, and Congress has just over six weeks to complete this work or face another potential shutdown  

Before the August recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee considered and approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill on a bipartisan basis, which contains a $40 million increase to the Perkins Basic State Grant program and provides significantly more resources to education and workforce development programs than the House version of the bill does. As negotiations on how to move these bills forward continue, we must continue to emphasize to Members of Congress that we support the Senate bill and its higher funding levels! Wrapping up the FY 24 appropriations process will be quite contentious, and your advocacy is critical to elevate the message that the Senate bill is preferable.    

ACTION NEEDED: CLICK HERE to urge your Members of Congress to support the Senate’s $40 million increase for Perkins and overall higher funding levels!     

You can send a message directly using the ACTE Action Center. You can also call or email directly any personal contacts that you have in your Members’ offices, such as from a meeting at NPS, or call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and an operator will connect you to your Member of Congress.

Over the weekend, Congress passed a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown. The Continuing Resolution (CR), which President Joe Biden signed late Saturday evening, will keep the federal government funded at current levels until November 17. 

After several failed attempts at a more partisan approach that would have significantly cut funding, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made the proposal early on Saturday, and it eventually passed the House on a 335-91 vote. The Senate took up the CR a few house later and passed the measure 88-9.  

The CR keeps funding levels at Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 levels, a significant victory given some of the other proposals over the past week. The package also includes $16 billion in federal disaster assistance, which meets the president’s full request. However, it does not include any aid to Ukraine, which was a top priority for President Biden and many Members of Congress from both parties. Additional aid is expected to be considered in separate bills.  

Over the next several weeks, Congressional leaders will use this additional time to continue trying to pass additional FY 24 appropriations bills. Leaders in both the House and the Senate will need to come to an agreement, and we will continue advocating for the highest funding level possible for CTE! 

This week in Washington continued to revolve around the appropriations process as Congress made last-ditch efforts to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. On Thursday, the Senate voted 76-22 to continue moving forward on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open, but procedural rules could delay an actual vote until the weekend. Meanwhile, the House approved three of its FY 24 appropriations bills in a partisan fashion, including legislation for foreign affairs, homeland security and defense spending. However, these bills will not be able to pass the Senate, and the House has failed on votes to pass its own CR. A shutdown of some length now appears increasingly likely with little time remaining on the clock before the midnight Saturday deadline. You can read more on the appropriations process from early this week here, and we will share the latest updates on Monday! Further news and notes below:

• Department of Education Announces Final Gainful Employment Rules: ED has released final regulations that establish new metrics that all certificate programs at public community and technical colleges and all programs at for-profit institutions must meet to remain eligible for financial aid. Read more on the blog.
• White House Hosts Event on Increasing Diversity and Opportunity in Higher Education: On September 28, the White House Domestic Policy Council joined ED to host a virtual event with postsecondary leaders focused on increasing diversity and opportunity at their institutions, including community colleges. The event also highlighted a new report from ED: Strategies for Increasing Diversity and Opportunity in Higher Education. 

• Department of Labor Announces Funding to Train and Expand Pathways for Women in Registered Apprenticeships, Nontraditional Occupations: DOL has announced an award of $5 million aimed at increasing the number of women in registered apprenticeship programs. The grant will be dispersed across seven different states and has the goal of connecting more women to good-paying jobs in nontraditional occupations.

• Department of Labor Announces Funding to Improve Job Quality and Expand Access to Jobs in Critical Sectors: DOL has announced multiple grants totaling $16 million aimed at improving job quality and increasing the availability of jobs in the care, climate resiliency and hospitality sectors. The grants will support organizations across 12 states in their efforts to pilot strategies to guide employers, local workforce systems and other partner organizations to enhance the job quality of local communities across the nation.

• ACTE and Advance CTE Submit Comments on Unemployment Compensation Information Data: ACTE and Advance CTE have submitted comments to the Department of Labor (DOL) in response to a request for information (RFI) regarding unemployment compensation (UC) records and related access to these sources of data. Our comments emphasized the importance of UC records as a key source of information on the labor market outcomes of learners enrolled in CTE and other workforce development programs. They also encourage DOL to make UC information more explicitly accessible to CTE stakeholders as they work to better support learners, workers and employers regularly served by CTE programs across the nation.

• Department of Education Releases Updated Data Strategy Handbook: ED has released its annual data strategy handbook that describes its vision for accelerating progress toward becoming more data-driven to fully leverage the mission and the purpose of the Department. The strategy is intended to help ED realize the use of high-quality data in advancing priorities and improving education outcomes, policy insights and excellence for the nation’s learners.

On September 26, the Department of Education released its final Gainful Employment (GE) rule. The rule is set to take effect July 1, 2024, with the first data reported in early 2025. 

The final GE rule, which is largely unchanged from the draft rule that the administration released in May, would apply to all certificate programs at public institutions, including community and technical colleges, and all programs at for-profit institutions. These programs would be subject to two new measures of performance.  

First, there is  a new debt-to-earnings rate that compares the median annual payments on loan debt borrowed for the program to the median earnings of its Federally aided graduated. For a program to pass, the debt payments must be no more than 8 percent of annual earnings or 20 percent of discretionary earnings.  

The final rule also includes a new earnings premium test, which would require at least half of program graduates to have higher earnings than a typical high school graduate between the ages of 25 and 34 in their state’s labor force who never enrolled in a postsecondary institution.  

If a program fails either metric in a single year, they will be required to provide warnings to current and prospective students that their program could be at risk of losing federal funding. If a program fails the same metric in two of any three consecutive years, it will no longer be eligible to participate in federal student aid programs. The department estimates that about 1,700 programs serving nearly 700,000 students would fail the debt-earnings ratio test or not pass the earnings threshold. 

The final GE rule also contains a new Financial Vale Transparency (FCT) framework that will “provide information to all students in all programs on the typical earnings outcomes, borrowing amounts, cost of attendance, and sources of financial aid to help students make more informed choices.” 

As the department moves forward with the implementation process, ACTE will continue to keep you informed on what this rule means for your programs and the postsecondary community. 

On September 26, the Senate moved forward on a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government open when the current federal fiscal year ends on September 30. The vote puts the Senate on a path to pass the CR later this week. 

The Senate legislation will fund the government until November 17. According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), funding will continue at the same levels as fiscal year 2023. The CR will also provide approximately $6.15 billion in funding for Ukraine and $5.99 billion in disaster relief. The legislation will also temporarily extend the expiring authority of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a few other expiring programs 

If the CR passes the Senate, it will then move to the House where it faces an uphill battle. Many House Republicans came out against the bill citing its lack of border protection policy. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) indicated on Tuesday evening that he would seek a meeting with President Joe Biden to try to work out a deal that would keep the government open while also including language on border protection, and the House may try to vote on their own CR later in the week. However, both the House and Senate must pass the same bill and send it to the President to be signed into law to avoid a government shutdown. Most Washington insiders are not optimistic at this point that this can occur, so agencies are starting to prepare for a potential shutdown. We will have more on that potential and new developments as the week unfolds! 

Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Manufacturing Workforce, the fifth in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE’s long-time partner Pearson. 

These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities in each sector and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective. 

This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the critical manufacturing workforce, which employs almost 13 million people nationwide with countless more workers needed each year to meet industry demand. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that give readers guidance for how to enter and progress within fields such as semiconductor manufacturing, electric vehicle and battery manufacturing, and supply chains. Finally, the Manufacturing Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing the workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more. 

As we move forward with the revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will be available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for students and the workforce. 

This week Congress continued its efforts to fund the government and avoid a shutdown before the end of the month, without much progress. The House continues to struggle to pass appropriations bills on the floor and has also been unable to come to an agreement on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open after the fiscal year ends on September 30, which is needed if the appropriations bills aren’t complete. Appropriations work in the Senate remained stalled most of the week as well, but they are now planning to take up their own version of a CR next week. Even with that step, the odds of a bill the passing the House remain low, increasing the potential of a government shutdown on October 1. Read more news and notes below:

• Department of Education Announces Funding to Improve Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities: ED has announced nearly $199 million in funding for the Pathways to Partnerships disability innovation fund that aims to support individuals with disabilities in accessing self-advocacy training, career pathways and independent living. The funding will go towards 20 model demonstration projects focused on increasing economic self-sufficiency and decreasing the unemployment disparity between youth with and without disabilities.

• Biden-Harris Administration Awards Funding to Support Hispanic-Serving Institutions: ED and the Biden-Harris Administration have announced an award of more than $40 million being dispersed to Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) across the country, including community colleges. The funding will assist these institutions in providing supports, expanding postsecondary attainment and opportunities and preparing Hispanic and Latino learners to enter the workforce.

• Department of Education Issues Details for ARP Spending Extension Requests: ED has announced a 14-month deadline extension for spending American Rescue Plan money in a letter sent to state grantees this week. Grantees can request the extension through state education agencies, which would allow for a spending deadline of as late as March 2026. Applicants will need to explain how a longer spending period would contribute to the acceleration of student learning and expand the continued path of academic recovery.

• Committee on Education & the Workforce Holds Hearing on Strengthening the Workforce Development System: This week, the Committee on Education & the Workforce held a hearing on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in which leaders discussed the legislation’s progress and needed areas of improvement since its enactment in 2014. Legislators discussed issues such as the high unemployment rate and the persistent shortage of skilled workers that have not sufficiently been improved since the passing of WIOA. The hearing also touched on reforms for WIOA’s bureaucracy, accountability mechanisms and provisions for better outcomes needed to fulfill the programs’ potential. Read more about the hearing on the blog here.