On Wednesday, October 2, I joined Governor Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Senate President Karen Spilka, Senate Ways & Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, Executive Office of Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, Department of Higher Education Commissioner Noe Ortega, MassBay Community College President David Podell, students Sara and Grace, and others to celebrate our state’s historic investment in a mighty equity engine, workforce engine, and opportunity engine — the Commonwealth’s community college system.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts implemented MassEducate — universally free community college.
We have seen the state’s transformative investments at work through MassReconnect. MassEducate builds on the program’s successes and will allow more Massachusetts residents to access the promise and power of a higher education degree.
I was deeply grateful to work with my colleagues in the Senate to introduce and pass free community college in this fiscal year’s budget. But we are not finished.
Investing in our students today means a brighter tomorrow for our Commonwealth.
More on MassEducate here: https://www.mass.edu/osfa/programs/masseducate.asp.
Read my remarks from the joyful celebration below, and watch them here.
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Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Madam President, Secretary Tutwiler, Commissioner Ortega, Chair Rodrigues, Chair Rogers, President Podell, Mr. Mayor, it is an honor to join you.
Sara and Grace — who will speak to us shortly — and all the students, staff, faculty, administrators, and campus presidents gathered. Today belongs to you — as we celebrate our state’s historic investment in 15 mighty equity, workforce, and opportunity engines.
We have already seen the transformative impact of MassReconnect — thank you Governor Healey.
MassEducate builds on that success — allowing more Commonwealth residents access to the promise and power of a higher education degree.
It sends a clear message — the same message you’ll find displayed on banners hung across Greenfield Community College in my district: You belong here.
Those are three good words strung together.
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The investments in free community college and across the higher education ecosystem — in this and last fiscal year — have begun to reverse a corrosive, decades-long trajectory of dis-investment.
Together we’ve said, “no more.” We’re not pulling back. Massachusetts is leaning in.
These investments include the highly-regarded and aptly named SUCCESS program, expanded this year to include community colleges AND state universities, providing targeted and proven wrap-around services for the most at-risk students.
We’ve also funded an initiative to end food insecurity on college campuses and have expanded dual enrollment and early college funding — to break down as many barriers as possible.
AND in the spirit of “we’re not done yet,” the partnership between the Legislature and the Administration will also deliver on strengthened transfer pathways between two and four year institutions — even as we address deferred maintenance on public campuses to ensure buildings are green, healthy, and able to support an excellent 21st century education, and a focus on “higher education quality and affordability,” exploring access to the state’s financial assistance programs as well as what’s needed to recruit and retain faculty, and to wrestle with students’ total cost of college.
We are lucky to have Higher Ed Commissioner Noe Ortega’s expertise at the heart of this work, as well as the commitment of the Secretary and the Administration.
We are similarly lucky to be urged on and bolstered by some of the best higher ed advocates in the nation. Thanks especially to Nate and the team at MACC.
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In closing, I want to acknowledge the leadership of Senate President Karen Spilka whose grit and commitment to public higher education inspired and helped drive the funding and policy we’re celebrating today.
Thank you as well to our Senate’s Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues for seeing this vision through.
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Today’s investments and the work to come are profound down payments on the future of our Commonwealth and generations to come.
