Community college tuition proposal stripped from Build Back Better bill before vote

President Joe Biden's hope of making two years of community college tuition-free have fallen by the wayside, at least for now.

Biden included the provision in the American Families Plan he released in April. It would have allocated $109 billion toward ensuring that "first-time students and workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree or credential for free." Students could use the benefit over three or four years. 

If all states, territories and tribes were all to participate, the proposal said, about 5.5 million students would benefit from free tuition. The White House said that immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as minors, sometimes called Dreamers, would qualify for this support.

As the American Families Plan morphed into a legislative vehicle known as the Build Back Better bill, however, the community college provision was removed in an effort to limit the package's price tag, which was seen as an obstacle to passage in both chambers.

The Senate is now considering the Build Back Better bill, but it doesn't include the community college proposal. So reviving it would require its inclusion in a future piece of legislation. For this reason, we rate it Stalled.