The plan has the support of the American Association of Community Colleges, which has been advocating for tuition-free community college for several years, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis for AACC.
“We think that the proposal will have a dramatic positive impact on the ability of students to successfully participate in community college education,” Baime said.
The additional funding for HBCUs and MSIs was praised by National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education president and CEO Lezli Baskerville, who called the proposed investments transformational. [The investments are] sorely needed to ensure that HBCUs, predominantly Black institutions and other postsecondary institutions that educate disproportionate percentages of persons of least advantage are prepared, inspired and supported into and through college graduation, Baskerville said.
Eric Lander
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday nominated Eric Lander to be his science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and also elevated the role of science adviser so that it will have cabinet rank.
Lander is president and founding director of the Broad Institute at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In a speech introducing Lander, Biden outlined five priorities for science in his administration. First, the pandemic and what can we learn about what is possible, or what should be possible, to address the widest range of our public health needs?