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Community colleges face new challenges as Trump's battles with higher education · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: The Trump administration's battles over higher education have mostly focused
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  Speaker 1: on elite and some public universities, but the president's policies
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  Speaker 1: are also creating challenges for some community colleges, and they
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  Speaker 1: could undermine those school's plans to create more economic opportunities
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  Speaker 1: and jobs. Paul Salmon has a report for our series
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  Speaker 1: Rethinking College.
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  Speaker 2: We've been following this story for years. Where will more
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  Speaker 2: skilled workers in the trades come from? The plumbers, electricians,
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  Speaker 2: construction workers? More than ever? It seems from community colleges
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  Speaker 2: like North Carolina's Durham Tech. Right, So I think this
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  Speaker 2: is so the students built this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, our instructors probably built a frame, and then our
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  Speaker 3: students are learning how to frame out the doors.
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  Speaker 2: College president JB. Buxton says, like all community colleges, his
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  Speaker 2: goes all out to get anyone and everyone through the door.
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  Speaker 3: What we're working to do is expand the population of
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  Speaker 3: peace coming in to the construction trades, and.
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  Speaker 2: The classes here are full teaching economic essentials for the region.
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  Speaker 4: When you start talking about what growing a successful economy
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  Speaker 4: looks like, the supply and demand equation that exists between
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  Speaker 4: workforce development and job recruitment and expansion is a critical one.
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  Speaker 2: Chamber of Commerce president Jeff Durham, no relation to the
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  Speaker 2: nineteenth century physician for whom the city was named, says
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  Speaker 2: that companies here are desperate for skilled workers.
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  Speaker 4: Question one from any company looking to expand or relocate
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  Speaker 4: or start up here is where is the talent coming from?
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  Speaker 4: What does that pipeline look like. Duramtech is a key
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  Speaker 4: entity to help prepare our broader community for those opportunities.
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  Speaker 2: By training construction workers for example. Now, happily this jives
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  Speaker 2: with the administration's populist agenda. Here's the problem, though, The
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  Speaker 2: push against the Harvard's and Columbia's is to target DEI
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  Speaker 2: pro defunding diversity, equity and inclusion to punish the hoity
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  Speaker 2: toity elitists. But that directly threatens the blue collar community
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  Speaker 2: colleges and their mission of expanding the workforce. For instance,
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  Speaker 2: Durham Tech needed permission from the National Science Foundation to
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  Speaker 2: extend unspent funds for a program to get more women
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  Speaker 2: into the trades.
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  Speaker 3: What we got back was that's fine, submit the paidwork,
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  Speaker 3: just don't put women or diversity in the request to
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  Speaker 3: extend the funds. The program is for women expanding the
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  Speaker 3: pool of potential workers and the talent.
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  Speaker 2: They had to comply, and one of the school's nonprofit partners,
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  Speaker 2: focused on getting more women and non binary individuals into
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  Speaker 2: the trades, had its federal funding completely killed. Despite the
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  Speaker 2: fact that, says President Buxton.
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  Speaker 3: Women make up about four percent of the construction trades
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  Speaker 3: and about that of the skilled trades, so you've got
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  Speaker 3: half of the population not really participating in this sector
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  Speaker 3: of the economy.
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  Speaker 2: The trigger phrase I heard was women and non binary
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  Speaker 2: or gender expansive.
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  Speaker 3: It could be. I mean, I don't want to speak
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  Speaker 3: for the administration on that. It's still the same issue.
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  Speaker 3: You're trying to expand the pool of eligible workers. If
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  Speaker 3: we have a not for profit organization that is trying
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  Speaker 3: to figure out how to get more people into the
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  Speaker 3: skilled trades, we want to work with it. If the
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  Speaker 3: Baptist men came to me, who do great disaster recovery
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  Speaker 3: and construction work, and said, we need you to trade
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  Speaker 3: men in the skilled trades so we can be better
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  Speaker 3: responsive in disaster, we'd work with them.
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  Speaker 2: The administration didn't respond to a request for comment. However,
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  Speaker 2: the Department of Education has previously said that it's quote
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  Speaker 2: taken action to eliminate harmful diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives,
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  Speaker 2: reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive
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  Speaker 2: ideology in our schools, to which Gretchen Bellamy respons I
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  Speaker 2: am eternally grateful for this program. Bellamy was a lawyer
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  Speaker 2: before she became one of the women who walked through
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  Speaker 2: the doors at Durham Tech and transformed her career.
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  Speaker 5: Not only have I learned how to fix things and
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  Speaker 5: think creatively and be a risk taker. Lawyers aren't risk takers.
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  Speaker 5: Actually cutting a hole into my own bathroom wall, you know,
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  Speaker 5: I was a little nerve wracking, so it gave me
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  Speaker 5: like the audacity to.
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  Speaker 2: Try, try and complete.
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  Speaker 5: I renovated my whole bathroom, my son's bathroom, put in
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  Speaker 5: a new floor, removed a vanity, remove the toilet. That's
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  Speaker 5: just in my own house.
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  Speaker 2: Bellamy is one of ten and a half million community
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  Speaker 2: college students in the US, some forty percent of all
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  Speaker 2: higher ed students. Of Durham Tech's eighteen thousand students, the
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  Speaker 2: majority are non white and working class, and the problem
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  Speaker 2: isn't just funding cuts for targeted programs for the community
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  Speaker 2: college student body, it's cuts in general, like for food
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  Speaker 2: stamps and Medicaid.
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  Speaker 3: Three quarters of our students are working health care, food assistance.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe the things that prevent them from enrolling or from
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  Speaker 3: stay works just like a normal grocery store.
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  Speaker 2: Jake Duderman runs the food pantry at Durham Tech, which
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  Speaker 2: serves seven hundred unique students every month. The number is
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  Speaker 2: shooting up in recent months.
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  Speaker 3: We've been seeing at least a few hundred more people
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  Speaker 3: per month than we normally do.
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  Speaker 2: Is that because of cuts and benefits like snap? Do
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  Speaker 2: you think? Yes?
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  Speaker 1: I believe so.
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  Speaker 2: Students like Edith Agola, who's working on her third associate's
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  Speaker 2: degree here from Kenya. She and her husband have two boys,
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  Speaker 2: one a seven year old with special needs.
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  Speaker 6: Being a student, a mother, and I don't have a
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  Speaker 6: full time job. I can only work here like five hours.
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  Speaker 6: There is on being I have an autistic child. Working
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  Speaker 6: for five hours that man is not enough for me
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  Speaker 6: to pay my bills. And also, you know, go grocery shopping.
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  Speaker 2: Does she use the pantry every.
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  Speaker 6: Time we get food in here? I have to carry
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  Speaker 6: something home that I think I need, not I think
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  Speaker 6: I need, I need.
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  Speaker 2: Need, she says, in order to attend school.
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  Speaker 6: You can't tell me I'll come here in the morning
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  Speaker 6: without breakfast, and I don't have lunch, and I don't
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  Speaker 6: know where my next min is coming from. And you
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  Speaker 6: think I can function in class. I don't think so.
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  Speaker 6: Pantry has saved me a plenty of days, especially in
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  Speaker 6: between tests and finals and such starving.
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  Speaker 2: Same for Katisha Burns.
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  Speaker 6: And of course you feed your children breakfast, but then
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  Speaker 6: I want to eat your breakfast.
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  Speaker 5: Just because your.
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  Speaker 2: Mom Burns intends to become a midwife.
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  Speaker 6: You need school into further any increated you're serious about.
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  Speaker 2: The administration said of its cuts to food assistance that
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  Speaker 2: SNAP had quote becomes so bloated that it's leaving fewer
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  Speaker 2: resources for those who truly need help. We are committed
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  Speaker 2: to preserving SNAP for the truly needy, and of cutting
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  Speaker 2: Medicaid that it quote removes illegal aliens, enforces work requirements,
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  Speaker 2: and protects medicaid for the truly vulnerable. But the effect,
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  Speaker 2: says Durham Tech president Buxton, fewer students for trade jobs, which,
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  Speaker 2: with immigrants leaving the country, are ever more in demand
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  Speaker 2: from consumers and employers alike.
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  Speaker 3: We're trying to be demand responsive to them. We need
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  Speaker 3: a level of certainty about how we can plan to
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  Speaker 3: be demand responsive and what the nature of that labor
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  Speaker 3: market looks like in the resources we're going to use.
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  Speaker 3: We don't just dream up some courses we can offer
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  Speaker 3: and see who comes and teach them. We're purpose built
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  Speaker 3: to serve this part of the economy in Durham and
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  Speaker 3: Orange Counties in the Greater Triangle region. So the less
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  Speaker 3: certainty we have about what the nature of our labor
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  Speaker 3: market looks like, the less effective we are in providing
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  Speaker 3: that support, and the less effect of a pathway we
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  Speaker 3: are for people trying to improve their lives.
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  Speaker 2: Support now being withdrawn from community colleges and there would
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  Speaker 2: be students for the PBS News Hour. Paul Salmon