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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


This week, MCC Board of Trustees Chair John Bartolotta, General Counsel Diane Cecero, and I are in Washington, D.C. at the American Community College Trustees National Legislative Summit. For three days each February, community college trustees and leaders from across the country take to Capitol Hill en masse to advocate for our students and colleges. We also have the chance to hear from leading voices in the field, who share their insights on and strategies for advancing our goals—most of which, surprise!, relate to increasing resources. So, I thought I’d share the central community college legislative priorities we are collectively advancing:

1) Maintain the Pell Grant program: This one’s fairly self-explanatory, but you should know that we also continue to advocate for the restoration of both summer Pell and funding for “ability to benefit” students. We’ve been saying Pell should be “protected and perfected.”

2) Sustain and enhance federal funding for community colleges and students: This includes funding that directly impacts MCC and our students from programs like Perkins, Title III, TRIO and the National Science Foundation. Perkins also falls into item four below.

3) Reauthorize the Higher Education Act: A key objective of this goal is to work our unique mission and contributions in the reauthorization, including any discussion of rating or ranking systems.

4) Strengthen workforce development and extend the TAACCCT (Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training) Grant program: Congress should authorize the Community College to Career Fund and place a priority on programs that bridge adults through basic education and high school equivalency to college.  In addition, the TAACCCT Grant program, which is benefitting thousands in New York state by creating career pathways, should be extended.

5)  Help community colleges serve veteran students: Congress should identify a federal solution to provide in-state tuition for veteran students and increase funding for Centers of Excellence for Veterans Student Success and Veterans Upward Bound.

6)  Improve higher education tax provisions: Community colleges support efforts to streamline existing tax credits and deductions through the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act.

Add in advocacy for the
DREAM Act (critically important to many of our colleges) and for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with a clear recognition of the college- and career-readiness issues impacting community colleges, and you can see that we’ve got a lot on our plate.

I would encourage you to think about items in this list that strike a chord with you and the students you serve (or the students you might have at home). Everything we do at MCC relies on our students’ ability to access our College and our ability to provide them with high quality programs and services that offer a real possibility of turning access into opportunity. Without support at the local, state and federal levels, we cannot fulfill our mission and build stronger futures for our students and communities—and above all, that is the message we carry. 

What message about our students and their needs would you carry to D.C.; what would you advocate for on their behalf?  Share your thoughts on the
blog.

Anne M. Kress
President's Office
02/12/2014