The article is an analysis which focuses on the years after the Great Recession, to show the interplay between federal and state policies. The first year after American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) federal stimulus funds ended, Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, coincided with new federal Pell Grant eligibility restrictions. State appropriations for community college operating budgets fell sharply at the same time Pell awards began to fall by two million over five years. Lower levels of tuition and fees revenue were generated, and community colleges without access to local revenues and in particular, small locally and nonlocally funded colleges were especially harmed when states made deep post-ARRA cuts in state operating support, forcing even larger tuition increases on their colleges to keep revenues constant.