This exodus of welfare recipients from the classroom must stop. Low-income women today deserve no less.
States have a financial incentive to encourage women on welfare to attend college.
Today, she works as a paralegal in a law firm and no longer needs public assistance. You're just going to have people getting back on welfare. But since Congress enacted its sweeping overhaul of welfare policy in 1996, enrollment of welfare recipients has declined sharply at community colleges as welfare recipients leave college for low-wage jobs. Hoping to encourage welfare recipients to pursue a college education, the U.S. Senate this fall adopted Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act that would allow states to count two years of postsecondary education as a work activity under TANF without risking penalties under the law's work participation requirements. States can act without changes to federal law, however, and several have already done so, including Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Wyoming.