KEY POINTS
  • Even though the plan to make community college tuition-free was stripped from the Build Back Better bill, the number of statewide free-college programs is growing.
  • For some high school students, the possibility of free tuition is paving the way to a degree.
Carla Osborn, second from left, with her classmates at Clovis Community College in New Mexico.

"I didn't want to give up, but it could have come to the point that I couldn't afford school," said Carla Osborn, 31, from Portales, New Mexico.

Osborn is studying nursing at Clovis Community College, located in a very small town near New Mexico's border with Texas. Her husband, Brendon, works as a probation officer, but together they are already paying off his student loans and money is tight.