Community colleges face new challenges as Trump’s battles with higher education

Amna Nawaz:

The Trump administration's battles over higher education have mostly focused on elite and some public universities. But the president's policies are also creating challenges for some community colleges. And they could undermine those schools' plans to create more economic opportunities and jobs.

Paul Solman has a report for our series Rethinking College.

Paul Solman:

We have been following this story for years. Where will more skilled workers in the trades come from, the plumbers, electricians, construction workers? More than ever, it seems, from community colleges, like North Carolina's Durham Tech.

So the students built this?

J.B. Buxton, President, Durham Technical Community College:

Yes. Our instructors probably built a frame and then our students are learning how to frame out the doors.

Paul Solman:

College President J.B. Buxton says, like all community colleges, his goes all out to get anyone and everyone through the door.

J.B. Buxton:

What we're working to do is expand the population of people who are coming in to the construction trades.

Paul Solman:

And the class is here, a full teaching economic essentials for the region.

Geoff Durham, President, Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce: When you start talking about what growing a successful economy looks like, the supply-and-demand equation that exists between work force development and job recruitment and expansion is a critical one.

Paul Solman:

Chamber of Commerce President Geoff Durham, no relation to the 19th century physician for whom the city was named, says the companies here are desperate for skilled workers.

Geoff Durham:

Question one from any company looking to expand or relocate or start up here is, where is the talent coming from? What does that pipeline look like? Durham Tech is a key entity to help prepare our broader community for those opportunities.

Paul Solman:

By training construction workers, for example. Now, happily, this jibes with the administration's populist agenda. Here's the problem, though. The push against the Harvards and Columbias is to target DEI programs, defunding diversity, equity and inclusion to punish the hoity-toity elitists.

But that directly threatens the blue-collar community colleges and their mission of expanding the work force. For instance, Durham Tech needed permission from the National Science Foundation to extend unspent funds for a program to get more women into the trades.

J.B. Buxton:

What we got back was, that's fine, submit the paperwork, just don't put women or diversity in the request to extend the funds. The program is for women, expanding the pool of potential workers and the talent.

Paul Solman:

They had to comply. And one of the school's nonprofit partners focused on getting more women and nonbinary individuals into the trades had its federal funding completely killed, despite the fact that, says President Buxton:

J.B. Buxton:

Women make up about 4 percent of the construction trades and about that of the skilled trades. So you have got half of the population not really participating in this sector of the economy.

Paul Solman:

The trigger phrase I heard was women and nonbinary or gender-expansive.

J.B. Buxton:

It could be. I mean, I don't want to speak for the administration on that. It's still the same issue. You're trying to expand the pool of eligible workers. If we have a not-for-profit organization that is trying to figure out how to get more people into the skilled trades, we want to work with them.

If the Baptist men came to me, who do great disaster recovery and construction work, and said, we need you to train men in the skilled trades so we can be better responsive in disaster, we'd work with them.

Paul Solman:

The administration didn't respond to a request for comment. However, the Department of Education has previously said that it's — quote — "taken action to eliminate harmful diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools," to which Gretchen Bellamy responds:

Gretchen Bellamy, Student, Durham Technical Community College:

I am eternally grateful for this program.

Paul Solman:

Bellamy was a lawyer before she became one of the women who walked through the doors at Durham Tech and transformed her career.

Gretchen Bellamy:

Not only have I learned how to fix things and think creatively and be a risk-taker — lawyers aren't risk takers. Me actually cutting a hole into my own bathroom wall, it was a little nerve-racking. So it gave me, like, the audacity to try.

Paul Solman:

Try and complete.

Gretchen Bellamy:

I renovated my whole bathroom, my son's bathroom, put it in a new floor, removed the vanity, removed the toilet. That's just in my own house.

Paul Solman:

Bellamy is one of 10.5 million community college students in the U.S., some 40 percent of all higher ed students. Of Durham Tech's 18,000 students, the majority are nonwhite and working class. And the problem isn't just funding cuts for targeted programs.

For the community college student body, it's cuts in general, like for food stamps and Medicaid.

J.B. Buxton:

Three-quarters of our students are working. Health care, food assistance may be the things that prevent them from enrolling or from staying.

Jake Deuterman, Coordinator, Campus Harvest Food Pantry:

Works just like a normal grocery store.

Paul Solman:

Jake Deuterman runs the food pantry at Durham Tech, which serves 700 unique students every month. The number is shooting up.

Jake Deuterman:

In recent months, we have been seeing at least a few hundred more people per month than we normally do.

Paul Solman:

Is that because of cuts in benefits like SNAP, do you think?

Jake Deuterman:

Yes, I believe so.

Paul Solman:

Students like Eddith Ogola, who's working on her third associate's degree. Here from Kenya, she and her husband have two boys, one a 7-year-old with special needs.

Eddith Ogola, Student, Durham Technical Community College:

Being a student, a mother, and I don't have a full-time job. I can only work here like five hours, the reason being I have an autistic child. Working for five hours, that money's not enough for me to pay my bills and also go grocery shopping.

Paul Solman:

Does she use the pantry?

Eddith Ogola:

Every time we get food in here, I have to carry something home that I think I need — not I think I need, I need.

Paul Solman:

Need, she says, in order to attend school.

Eddith Ogola:

You can't tell me I will come here in the morning without breakfast and I don't have lunch and I don't know where my next meal is coming from and you think I can function in class. I don't think so.

Kateshia Burns, Student, Durham Technical Community College:

Pantry has saved me of plenty of days, especially in between tests and finals and such from starving.

Paul Solman:

Same for Kateshia Burns.

Kateshia Burns:

And, of course, you feed your children breakfast, but then they want to eat your breakfast just because you're mom.

Paul Solman:

Burns intends to become a midwife.

Kateshia Burns:

You need schooling to further any in career that you're serious about.

Paul Solman:

The administration said of its cuts to food assistance that SNAP had — quote — "become so bloated that it's leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help. We are committed to preserving SNAP for the truly needy" and of cutting Medicaid that it — quote — "removes illegal aliens, enforces work requirements and protects Medicaid for the truly vulnerable."

But the effect, says Durham Tech President Buxton, fewer students for trade jobs, which, with immigrants leaving the country, are ever more in demand from consumers and employers alike.

J.B. Buxton:

We're trying to be demand-responsive to them. We need a level of certainty about how we can plan to be demand-responsive and what the nature of that labor market looks like and the resources we're going to use.

We don't just dream up some courses we can offer and see who comes and teach them. We're purpose-built to serve this part of the economy in Durham and Orange County's in the Greater Triangle region. So the less certainty we have about what the nature of our labor market looks like the, less effective we are in providing that support and the less effective pathway we are for people trying to improve their lives.

Paul Solman:

Support now being withdrawn from community colleges and their would-be students.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman.