Pell Grants Will Soon Help Students Pay for Job Training Programs

Pell Grants, which provide federal financial aid to low-income college students, are getting a significant expansion this year. A new grant program called Workforce Pell — included in the massive spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law last summer — will open in 2026 to students pursuing short-term job training programs.

But a slew of rules intended to protect students and taxpayers, combined with a rapid implementation timeline, could mean relatively few training courses are approved for the 2026–2027 academic year. While the policies still have to be finalized, the draft regulations outline a heavy lift for both states and institutions to prove courses meet eligibility for funding.

It will probably take years for the Workforce Pell Grant initiative to fully mature, says Lindsey Reichlin Cruse, director of research at the National Skills Foundation: “It's not going to be this huge sea change, you know, as soon as the clock strikes midnight in July.”

But, she adds, this is a potentially big transformation of how the federal government supports job training. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2034, about 100,000 students a year could receive Workforce Pell Grants, totaling about $300 million.

Here’s what you need to know about the start of Workforce Pell, plus other Pell Grant changes coming in 2026.

Pell Grants will soon be available to pay for (some) short-term training programs

Workforce Pell aims to help low- and moderate-income Americans afford the upfront costs of certifications required to get a well-paying job. (Until now, Pell Grants have been mostly restricted to degree-seeking undergraduate students.)

A student not only has to qualify for a Pell Grant based on their finances, but they also must attend a training program that’s approved for the funding. To be eligible, programs must train people for high-skill, high-wage or in-demand jobs, offer stackable credentials and be recognized by multiple employers.

The programs also need to demonstrate a 70% completion rate and job placement rate, as well as satisfy an earnings test that compares the price of the program to the wages of graduates.

Those requirements are intended to create trust in short-term programs and help ensure programs receiving federal funding will lead to “good jobs, family-sustaining wages and in-demand fields,” Reichlin Cruse says.

Ben Cecil, deputy director of higher education at think tank Third Way, says the draft rules have some merit, but he would ideally prefer more guardrails to protect students. The 70% completion rate, in his view, seems inadequate given these programs are, at most, three and a half months long.

“There’s just a lot we don’t know about what financial returns students will get in the labor market by pursuing a short-term program,” he says.

What types of programs will qualify for Workforce Pell

Relatively few existing community college programs currently meet all the requirements, according to the Community College Research Center. Reporting from Work Shift, a media outlet focused on education and training, suggests that for-profit colleges and four-year institutions with continuing education and professional development courses may be better positioned to get approved this year.

Eventually, though, there could be several hundred to thousands of individual programs that qualify, according to a document from the Education Department. Programs most likely to qualify include those tailored for health care roles like phlebotomy and EMT training, child care credentials and technical fields such as welding and mechanics.

There’s also an open question about whether states have the ability to track all the different pieces that will be required by the government for programs to get funding, Cecil says. Some states and college systems have invested in formalizing data collection for non-degree programs, but others will have to build the data infrastructure from scratch.

On the bright side, an eventual side effect of the efforts involved in collecting that data will hopefully be more transparent information about costs and payoffs, Reichlin Cruse says. This could help students make informed decisions.

Currently, there’s no central place to easily look up that sort of information about credentials in there— and what is available isn’t exactly user friendly, she says.

What to know if you’re interested in using a Workforce Pell Grant

Awards for these programs will be prorated based on course length, meaning students won’t get the maximum $7,395 Pell Grant even if they have significant financial need. A 300-hour program that runs for 10 weeks, for example, could result in an award between $1,800 and $2,500, according to UPCEA, the association for online and professional education.

This funding is considered “last dollar,” Reichlin Cruse says, meaning if you have other scholarships, they’ll cover the costs first, and you’ll only qualify for the grant if there’s a gap remaining. Students should also keep in mind that using Pell dollars for these programs counts toward their lifetime Pell limit (currently set at 12 semesters of funding).

It’s hard to say how much of a program’s tuition the grants would actually cover, as costs vary significantly by focus, location and school type.

For example, phlebotomy training programs at community colleges typically cost a student between $1,000 and $2,500 for tuition, supplies and licensing fees. A commercial driver’s license program — another example provided by Education Department officials as a program that may be a good fit for Workforce Pell — can cost between $4,000 and $12,000, according to Schneider, which provides long-haul and regional trucking services.

Still, “any support for folks who would traditionally not have received financial support is a step in the right direction,” Reichlin Cruse says. “We’re going from zero to something.”

Even if a program qualifies for Workforce Pell, students should still do their own due diligence to ensure it delivers the outcomes they want, Cecil says.

Other Pell Grant changes coming in 2026

Workforce Pell is the change getting most of the attention this year, but there are others that are “small but impactful,” says Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

Families that own small businesses and farms could qualify for more aid

The FAFSA Simplification Act, a law passed in 2020 that overhauled the financial aid form, required families that own small businesses or family farms to start reporting those assets. Before that, those assets were exempt, meaning they didn’t count against your eligibility for a Pell Grant.

It was a short-lived policy change. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored those exemptions, so students whose families own a business with fewer than 100 employees, a farm the family lives on or a family-owned commercial fishery may qualify for a larger Pell Grant than they did last year since those assets no longer count toward their aid calculation.

Stricter rules limit awards for high-asset families

The FAFSA Simplification Act also changed how eligibility for Pell Grants was determined. Instead of the complicated formula used in the past, eligibility now is based on your income and family size relative to the federal poverty level.

But that simplicity created a loophole where some wealthier families — ones with low income but still significant assets — qualified for a grant.

“That’s obviously not the intention of the program,” Desjean says.

The loophole is closed on the 2026-2027 FAFSA.

Students with full-ride scholarships no longer eligible for Pell Grants

Students who receive scholarships from schools, states or outside organizations that cover their full cost of attendance will no longer be able to receive a Pell Grant on top of their award.

Very few people actually qualify for a true full-ride scholarship or cobble together enough separate awards to be affected, Desjean says, noting that it will primarily affect student-athletes who were Pell-eligible. The change takes effect for the 2026-2027 academic year.

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