WV Invests: Success, failure, or chaotic times?

By William Arnett
Newsroom@DominionPost.com
West Virginia Invests was created to expand higher education access, give West Virginia another line for state-grown jobs and try to stem the tide of population decline.
While the program has achieved the first goal, it is unclear if it will achieve the second.
In 2019, the West Virginia Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, with the goal of establishing free community and technical college education for jobs in certain sectors that the West Virginia Department of Commerce identifies as “high-demand fields.”
WV Invests recipients are required to stay in the state for two years after receiving the grant or they have to pay back the money received from the state.
According to Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) Communications Coordinator Katie Jarrell, 1,166 students took advantage of the program in 2019, its first year.
Following a decrease in 2021, enrollment in WV Invests rose to 1,445 in 2022, which was an almost 24% increase over the 2019 numbers. In the same period of time, four-year colleges experienced declines, both in West Virginia and across the country.
Still, in 2022 WV Invests students only accounted for 9.3% of all community and technical college students in the state.
According to the 2022 HEPC Financial Aid report, $4,602,394 was given to WV Invests students with an average award of $3,447 in the 2021-22 school year.
Pierpont Community and Technical College in Fairmont has consistently had the highest number of students in the program.
So far, the program covers the tuition for hundreds of programs at nine community and technical colleges across the state as well as associate degree programs at Potomac State College, which is part of the West Virginia University system.
Community and technical college institutions only make up about 26% of all higher education enrollment in the United States.
This could be due to the different demographics between those institutions and community and technical colleges.
Higher Education Policy Commission Senior Director of Financial Aid Brian Weingart said, “Usually late 20s is the average age for the community college students.”
Students participating with free tuition from WV Invests accounted for 9.2% of the 15,770 students attending community and technical colleges in West Virginia in 2022.
Casey Sacks, president of BridgeValley Community and Technical College in South Charleston, has worked in community and technical college education for years, twice as vice chancellor of the Community and Technical College System and as deputy assistant secretary for Community Colleges in the federal Department of Education.
Sacks said before the WV Invests program, colleges asked employers like Toyota for help paying students’ tuition.
“Since Senate Bill 1 has passed, that conversation has shifted. So now talking to employers, instead of saying how do we help students with tuition and fees, it’s how do we help students have a wage?” Sacks said.
The conversation has moved from businesses helping get students into community colleges in order to increase the potential workforce, to colleges helping students get jobs once they graduate.
But is it helping with increasing the workforce in the state? So far, it is hard to tell.
With the program only being in its fourth year, students who started in the first year would just now be completing their residency requirement.
This year, West Virginia is among 32 states providing some sort of community college assistance program.
Across the nation, programs can range from free community college for students to additional layers of assistance.
Maine’s program, born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, is only available to the high school graduating class of 2020-23.
However it isn’t limited to Maine high school graduates, anyone living in Maine and going to one of their community colleges can qualify, and there is no residency requirement after graduation.
On the west coast, California established the California Promise program.
That program gives state money directly to colleges and allows them to do what they want to enhance the student experience.
It could mean waiving tuition fees, but also other things like money for childcare, transportation or book costs.
One of West Virginia’s border states, Kentucky has the Work Ready Kentucky program.
Work Ready Kentucky, is the most like WV Invests. It also limits tuition waivers to “high-demand” fields.
Students have been able to use the WV Invests program in West Virginia to advance their career prospects and increase their access to higher education.
Sue Shipley, 46, from Carpendale in Mineral County, had been attending West Virginia University-Potomac State College while receiving the WV Invests grant. In May 2022, she received her associate’s degree in business management. She is continuing her studies toward a bachelor’s degree at WVU.
Shipley plans to stay in West Virginia and continue working at her local credit union following her graduation.