Financial aid shouldn’t be entirely based on GPA.

Not all students are coming from the same place, and they don’t all have the same goals.

Although many community colleges today are designed as stepping-stones to higher educational pursuits, and GPA does play a part, there are other reasons that a GPA might not be required.

Many students looking specifically for job skills are doing so due to layoffs from their previous jobs in which financial resources to pay for community college are probably a big concern already.

To hold a student who is returning to school for job re-training, in automotive mechanics for example, to a 2.0 GPA, could be a huge impediment to their academic success.

Not everyone who attends community college is looking to go on to a higher education.

Many students who do, may be going in at a disadvantage after already being out of school for a number of years.

In addition, these students are probably returning to school because of economic issues. Many are either training in other skills or to enhancing their current set of skills.

This type of policy could have detrimental impacts to these type of students and could possibly impair economic growth in the nation overall.

Community colleges today can be much more than just a stepchild of the higher education system, as President Barack Obama said.

President Obama recognizes that the value of community colleges in not only providing that path to higher education, but also in providing re-training and job skills in this ever-changing economy.

In 2009, Obama proposed a $12 billion plan to support community colleges in these type of efforts, but Congress only authorized $2 billion.

Just this year, Obama proposed another $8 billion plan, which Congress didn’t act on at all.

Obama’s plan alone could have trained more than two million new workers with skills leading directly to a job, according to a New York Times article in February.