President Joe Biden did not pass legislation to make community college and skilled training programs tuition-free as he promised during his 2020 campaign. 

Biden's free community college promise was part of a plan to make higher education more affordable, along with college tuition subsidies for low-income Americans and broad student debt forgiveness.

Biden initially included the provision in the 2021 American Families Plan, which covered education, child care and worker benefits. The community college program would have ensured that all "first-time students and workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree or credential for free." If all states, territories and tribes participated, the White House said, about 5.5 million students would pay no tuition for community college.

The American Families Plan lacked the support to pass through Congress, and the education portions were struck in negotiations. Biden continued to push to make community college free through his presidency, but no additional bill materialized to advance the promise. In his annual budget proposals, Biden called for expanding free community college tuition. The White House budget proposals are statements of priorities; Congress makes  final decisions on the federal budget.

Biden pushed for legislation to make community college tuition free, but signed no such legislation into law. 

We rate this Promise Broken.

President Joe Biden's hope of making two years of community college tuition-free have fallen by the wayside, at least for now.

Biden included the provision in the American Families Plan he released in April. It would have allocated $109 billion toward ensuring that "first-time students and workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree or credential for free." Students could use the benefit over three or four years. 

If all states, territories and tribes were all to participate, the proposal said, about 5.5 million students would benefit from free tuition. The White House said that immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as minors, sometimes called Dreamers, would qualify for this support.

As the American Families Plan morphed into a legislative vehicle known as the Build Back Better bill, however, the community college provision was removed in an effort to limit the package's price tag, which was seen as an obstacle to passage in both chambers.

The Senate is now considering the Build Back Better bill, but it doesn't include the community college proposal. So reviving it would require its inclusion in a future piece of legislation. For this reason, we rate it Stalled.

President Joe Biden continues to pursue a campaign promise to make two years of community college tuition-free, including it in the American Families Plan he released in April. 

Biden's plan would allocate $109 billion toward ensuring that "first-time students and workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree or credential for free." Students could use the benefit over three or four years. 

If all states, territories, and tribes participate, the proposal said, about 5.5 million students would benefit from free tuition. The White House said that immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as minors, sometimes called Dreamers, would qualify for this support.

The American Families Plan would also allocate an additional $85 billion for Pell Grants, allowing an additional $1,400 in educational assistance to low-income students.

The plan would also devote $62 billion to a grant program "to invest in completion and retention activities at colleges and universities that serve high numbers of low-income students, particularly community colleges."

The American Families Plan hasn't been put into legislative language yet, and it's far from certain that the entire proposal, or even portions of it, will be enacted by the narrowly divided House and Senate. 

In fact, bipartisan negotiations over a higher-priority proposal from Biden — the American Jobs Plan, sometimes known as Biden's infrastructure proposal — have struggled to produce a workable agreement, amid concerns expressed by Republicans that the program costs too much. In a Senate where support from 60 senators is required to advance to a final vote, the path to passage is difficult.

Still, the inclusion of Biden's campaign promise in a formal proposal from the White House is enough to rate this promise In the Works.