Thirteen states have published Workforce Pell approval frameworks. Twelve published eligible-occupation lists running from Pennsylvania's 19 to North Carolina's 364; Florida instead issued a 31-program inventory. The federal law lets a program qualify if it is high-skill or high-wage or in-demand, but every state has layered its own screens on top of that floor. This page compares those frameworks side by side, for state and federal readers tracking what other states are doing: how long the list is, how high the wage bar sits, and what each state demands beyond it.
The first approved-program roster has landed: Pennsylvania posted its final 2026-27 list July 8, approving 2 of the 40 programs submitted by 11 institutions, both truck-driving programs. Iowa (window closed May 15) was first to launch; Texas (closed Jun 19) and Arkansas (closed Jun 30) are in state review; Minnesota extended its provider deadline to August 15; Nebraska opened its NDOL application portal July 8 with a 49-occupation list; South Dakota announced July 7 that its inaugural window is open (July 1 to August 31, determinations by October 30) against a 56-occupation list; Ohio accepts year-round; Michigan notifies institutions in August and reopens January 15; Florida has published a 31-program inventory; Alabama launched a rolling per-program approval process Jun 30; North Carolina's first deadline is July 15. At the July 1 launch, South Carolina opened its first quarterly window, Mississippi and Tennessee began accepting applications, and Colorado opened its certification platform ahead of a July 15 to August 15 window. The federal final rule published May 19; programs went live July 1.
The same federal statute produced lists ranging from 19 occupations to 364, a roughly nineteenfold spread. Two philosophies: publish a short, targeted list, or publish a broad list and do the real filtering at the program level. Ohio sits at the broad end, screening against its existing statewide Top Jobs list. Florida is the one state off this axis: it published a program inventory directly rather than an occupation list, so it carries no fixed occupation count.
Scroll horizontally to see all eleven states. Each column links to the state's primary source.
The convergence is procedural, mostly forced by federal law. The divergence is philosophical, and it is where states are making real choices.
Heavy-truck (CDL) drivers sit on every one of the ten published occupation lists. Electricians, HVAC technicians, and plumbers sit on nine of the ten: South Carolina's 24-occupation pilot list, effective July 1, includes CDL and the heavy-equipment trades but not those three building trades. Florida, which publishes a program inventory rather than an occupation list, also includes CDL but not the building trades, skewing instead to public safety and health care. These four remain the most widely shared occupations across the published lists. A common worry about widely shared occupations is over-enrollment: too many providers piling into the same fields. The numbers run the other way. Certificates the federal data can see are a small fraction of projected annual openings.
| Occupation | Short-certificate completions (2023) | Projected annual openings | Pipeline fill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricians | 9,791 | ~81,000 | ~12% |
| HVAC mechanics and installers | 7,736 | ~40,100 | ~19% |
| Plumbers, pipefitters, steamfitters | 945 | ~44,000 | ~2% |
| Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers | 22,624 | ~237,600 | ~9% |
Completions: IPEDS 2023, certificates of less than one academic year (award levels 20 and 21), first majors, each occupation's primary CIP. This is the band most trade and CDL certificates fall in: a separate one-to-two-year level adds 12,056 electrician, 11,341 HVAC, 1,068 plumbing, and 278 truck-driver completions, but those longer programs are the exception for these occupations. Openings: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projected annual openings, 2024-34 projections (electricians, truck drivers).
Before South Carolina's pilot list, exactly these four occupations cleared all nine then-published lists; twelve lists in (Nebraska's and South Dakota's posted the week of July 7), heavy-truck drivers remain the only occupation on every one. Just behind them, electricians, HVAC technicians, and plumbers clear eleven of twelve (every list but South Carolina's); computer user support specialists ten of twelve (every list but Minnesota's and South Carolina's); carpenters nine of twelve (missing from Minnesota's, South Carolina's, and South Dakota's); and phlebotomists nine of twelve (missing from Texas's, Arkansas's, and South Dakota's). The broad lists include nearly everything; the tight lists, Pennsylvania's 19, Minnesota's 22, and South Carolina's 24, decide what is most widely shared, and what survives everywhere is CDL, with the skilled trades just behind.
Why the visible pipeline looks this thin, and where over-enrollment could still appear:
As of today, these four occupations are undersupplied by Pell-visible providers, not oversaturated.
The cleanest way to read it: Iowa gates hardest on definition (all three criteria at once), Pennsylvania gates softest on wage (a poverty-line floor) but hardest on list size (19 occupations), Minnesota gates hardest on wage (a family-sustaining benchmark) while carving out priority sectors, and North Carolina keeps the widest list (364) while pushing the real filtering down to the program level. One statute, applied through markedly different state screens.
As states move from passing Workforce Pell to running it, the demand for sound data, clear comparison across states, and an honest read on outcomes grows with it. Opportunity Data works with partners to help get the rollout right.
Counts are distinct occupations on each state's published eligible-occupation list, retrieved and verified June 18, 2026. Pennsylvania (19) and North Carolina (364) are the states' own stated figures; Minnesota (22), Iowa (243), and Michigan (267) are counted directly from the published list files. Texas's THECB publishes a "Workforce Pell Eligible Occupations and Programs" file listing 25 occupations crosswalked to 362 eligible programs (363 SOC-CIP pairings), drawn from the Texas Workforce Commission Target Occupations List. Iowa's 243 H3 occupations map to exactly 3,338 occupation-program pairings in its SOC-CIP crosswalk. Ohio screens against its existing statewide Top Jobs list, which enumerates 363 detailed occupations that roll up to 352 distinct SOC codes. Arkansas (245) is counted from the statewide tab of its 5-Star High-wage and/or In-Demand Occupations List for AY 2026-27, verified June 26, 2026; its regional tabs add occupations, to 481 distinct across all eleven regions. Alabama (231) is counted from the ACCCP 2025 Statewide In-Demand Occupations List, verified June 30, 2026; its regional lists add occupations, and an occupation must appear on at least three regional lists to reach the statewide list. South Carolina (24) is counted as distinct SOC codes on its Pilot Eligible Occupations List V3, verified July 2, 2026; State Instruction 25-18 describes the pilot set as subject to ongoing evaluation and future refinement. Florida carries no list-size figure: its State Board of Education published a 2025-26 Workforce Pell Program Inventory of 31 programs rather than an occupation list. Nebraska (49) is counted as distinct SOC codes on the 2026-27 Initial Eligible Occupation and Program List posted July 8, 2026 (129 SOC-CIP pairings); Nebraska's documented screening process yields 40 occupations, and its policy allows additions at the Governor's discretion, which accounts for the difference from the state's stated figure. South Dakota (56) is counted as distinct SOC codes on the Qualifying Occupations List retrieved July 10, 2026; that list covers the labor-market pathway only, and occupations can also qualify through Governor strategic designation or as Registered Apprenticeship related instruction.
The employer-alignment row summarizes how each state's application guidance or determination policy operationalizes the federal requirement that a program "meet the hiring requirements of employers" (34 CFR 690.93); each cell was taken from the state instrument (guidance manual, determination policy, or state instruction) and verified against the document text on July 7, 2026; Nebraska's and South Dakota's cells were verified July 10, 2026.
Definitions of high-skill, high-wage, and in-demand, the wage thresholds, and the program-level screens are taken from each state's published policy and methodology documents: Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Florida (which links its 2025-26 program inventory). For where every state and DC stand in the approval pipeline, see the State Implementation Tracker.
Workforce Pell was created by H.R. 1 (2025), amending section 401 of the Higher Education Act, and implemented through the U.S. Department of Education's final rule of May 19, 2026. The state instruments compared above are administrative actions adopted under that authority: the NCWorks Commission policy statement (NC), the Governor's Workforce Development Board determination policy (MN), THECB program guidance (TX), LEO program determination policies (MI), PDE application guidance (PA), and Iowa Department of Education program guidance (IA).
A program must exist for a year before it can qualify. Florida's program-first and Colorado's occupation-first implementations show why educational supply decides what Workforce Pell can fund.
Early state frameworks fall into two camps, curated occupation lists and permissive ones, and the choice shapes what institutions can offer.
Much of short-term training lives in noncredit programs federal data cannot see. Workforce Pell's reporting requirements could make that pipeline visible.
In Census PSEO data on 10,025 short-term certificate programs, 97 percent clear the earnings bar; two-thirds are too small to be measured at all.