Congressional leaders raise costs of post-secondary education

North Carolinians want affordable, accessible higher education and skills training. The harmful Republican megabill signed by President Trump will raise costs in the post-secondary education arena of obtaining degrees, training, and certifications.

As students return to campuses across North Carolina this fall, the shifting landscape for affording post-secondary education will make it harder to achieve the state’s ambitious goal of ensuring that 2 million North Carolinians ages 25-44 have a post-secondary credential or degree by 2030.

Reducing supports to student success 

Deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and the loss of premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act marketplace will mean many children and adults losing health care coverage. As the Center on American Progress reports, “community college students would likely be disproportionately harmed by the cuts … to social safety net programs such as SNAP and Medicaid.”

Across universities and community colleges, there is rising concern that hunger and access to health care block the timely completion of degrees. New work-reporting requirements in both Medicaid and SNAP also will create red tape for students who may face challenges in meeting the arbitrary thresholds due to the semester calendar and other factors related to getting a post-secondary education. 

Reducing access to federal loan programs 

Federal loan programs are lower-cost options with stronger protections for borrowers. Over half of North Carolina college graduates have student loan debt, mostly from federal loans. The new policy bars certain post-secondary undergraduate programs from offering federal loans to students if the median earnings of program graduates don’t exceed the median earnings of high school graduates. While expected to impact a relatively small percentage of programs and students, the reality is that the wages of young college graduates aren’t keeping up with rising costs, and the policy could have harmful impacts on programs that educate students for important but undercompensated work. Furthermore, the policy does not require the same accountability for short-term training programs to secure a credential or certificate.  

There are also new caps on the amount of loans for graduate students and parents of undergraduates that could narrow the educational options or increase the near-term costs for students, further blocking enrollment and completion.  

Changing Pell Grant program terms 

New eligibility limits on who can receive Pell Grants were put in place and are largely based on whether the student is receiving other types of financial aid. At the same time, Pell Grants would for the first time become available to students enrolled in short-term job training programs. As the National Skills Coalition notes in celebrating increased access to Pell Grants for skills training: “For Short-Term Pell to succeed, its implementation must focus on students’ outcomes and ensure that it makes students better off economically.”  

While the bill made an essential, immediate infusion of $10.5 billion to close a shortfall in the Pell Grant Program in 2026 that would have resulted in reductions to financial aid for students, the underlying structure for how the Pell Grant program is funded was unaddressed. Given the expansion noted above, this likely will make funding shortfalls more frequent. 

The bottom line

The reconciliation bill remakes the landscape of post-secondary opportunity in our country by increasing costs for some students and providing access to financial aid options to others, while still failing to provide the comprehensive supports needed to ensure that every student can complete the education and training that strengthen our communities and economy.