Chronicle of Higher Education

West Virginia is the latest state to move closer to offering free community college to its residents. But as with “free college” measures that have gone into effect in other states, the education funding would come with a few caveats.

The West Virginia Senate voted, unanimously and across party lines, on Tuesday to move Senate Bill 284 on to the House of Delegates for consideration. If enacted, the bill would create a last-dollar benefit to cover the outstanding costs of tuition and mandatory fees not covered by Pell Grants or other grant aid.

“The motivation for the bill is to lift the education-attainment level for all West Virginians and give them a pathway to a brighter future,” said Mitch Carmichael, president of the state Senate and sponsor of the legislation. “From a state perspective, it helps us say to the world that our work force is drug-free, trained, educated, and ready to go to work.”

But a requirement that prospective students pay for a drug test, and pass, to qualify for the scholarship — particularly in West Virginia, which is among the states hit hardest by the national opioid crisis — has raised objections.

Critics say it may dissuade those who might have otherwise tried to go to college from taking advantage of the program.

Senator Carmichael, a Republican, is not convinced that the drug-test requirement will have a negative effect, and instead sees the prospect of attending college, at little to no cost, as a benefit.

“Frankly I think it motivates people to become drug-free and to participate in the program,” he said. “It’s meant as a positive aspect. And frankly those who are attached to our community-technical colleges now have some degree of drug testing associated with it to get into the program.”

Nathan M. Sorber, an assistant professor of higher-education administration at West Virginia University, said, however, that reading of the requirement does not fully capture the complexity of the recovery process for addicts.

“Getting into college itself can be a part of the road to recovery,” Sorber said.

There is also the question of how the state will test for drugs — and whether the presence of opioids, which include legally obtained prescription drugs, will altogether exclude someone from receiving the aid.

State higher-education officials largely cheered the move, even as some institutions, such as West Virginia State University and Concord University, expressed some worry about their own two-year programs, which would be excluded from the free-college plan.

“I understand their concerns,” said Senator Carmichael, who added that lawmakers would look at different options to respond to the universities’ worries.

The push for free community college — which amounts to an $8-million investment — comes on the heels of declining support for public higher education in the state more generally.

“We’ve had a series of successive budget cuts over the past five years, ultimately resulting in more than $15 million in cuts to the community-college system,” said Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor of the West Virginia Community and Technical College System. “And that has resulted in several things, including layoffs, reduced salaries, and significant hardship on some of our campuses.”

“But it’s also, of course, resulted in tuition increases,” she continued, and the bill would help to correct some of that.

Higher-education observers who have been following “free college” proposals are cautiously optimistic about how much impact the bill will have.

“If you’re trying to create a culture of college-going, then providing everyone with the opportunity to go to college is a great way to do that,” said Kim Dancy, a senior policy analyst at New America. “But the more you impose different restrictions, the less effective it’s going to be.”

Dancy also expressed concern about how the state would continue to fund the program beyond the initial investment. Senator Carmichael said lawmakers were considering ways to limit the expense, such as means testing, but until a final determination is made, they will fund it with general revenue.

Still, the legislation — and the unanimous, bipartisan support behind it — sends a message that the state recognizes the importance of the work of its community and technical colleges, said Tucker, the system chancellor.

“That’s huge bipartisan support in the state of West Virginia,” she said, “and it’s something that we really haven’t seen for a long time.”

Adam Harris is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @AdamHSays or email him at adam.harris@chronicle.com.