Federal Pell Grants provide financial aid for low-income college students. Now, for the first time, students in short-term vocational programs can be eligible for federal financial aid, through new Workforce Pell Grants.
To qualify, occupations have to be considered “high-skill,” “high wage” or “in-demand.”
Whitney Thompson with the Illinois Community College Board says there will likely be around 60 occupations in Illinois that meet that mark and will have programs offered at the state's community colleges and universities.
“Although," said Thompson, "most of the buzz nationally, and I think in our state, we're already kind of hearing, is going to be EMT and CDL."
The program officially went into effect July 1, but she says students won’t be able to take advantage right away.
“Students in Illinois are unlikely to be able to benefit from Workforce Pell until potentially the spring/summer, but most definitely the 2027-28 academic year," she said. "That is pretty much how it's going to be rolled out in other states as well.”
Other states, like Iowa, have already approved nine programs for a few occupations like EMT and HVAC, but Thompson says, by taking their time, they hope Illinois will have a higher number of approved programs.
She says it's also because there are a lot of requirements states are figuring out. Courses can only be 8-14 weeks (150-599 hours), shorter than a typical semester. They have to be transferable. They have to have 70% completion rates and 70% job placement rates in the occupation they were trained for.
Thompson says there are some requirements they hope the U.S. Department of Education will change, and they've given the department feedback on. For example, all programs have to be transferrable but if students continue their studies instead of going right into the workforce after, that counts against their job placement rate.
"It does play into the college's thinking in terms of which programs make sense or not," she said. "They may be seeking approval only for programs where the training is for on ramp to an occupation and don't articulate to another program. So, we're going to see a significant amount, I think, of truck driver training because that is sort of its own standalone program."
Thompson says the state's also never collected specific data before on what percentage of students go directly into the field they were trained for.
Illinois already offers some short-term state financial aid through MAP grants. She says the state also added some of their own requirements to safeguard students from predatory institutions, including higher levels of accountability for the financial health of the school and consumer protections.
