Page 13 - BusinessWest August 19, 2024

EDUCATION >>
Access Granted
MassEducate Opens
Up Free Community
College to Everyone
“Regardless
of your socioeconomic status, background, ethnicity, whoever you are, you can
BusinessWest
<< EDUCATION >>
AUGUST 19, 2024 13
BY JOSEPH BEDNAR
[email protected]
John Cook calls it “historic.”
And he’s not alone among the region’s community-college presi-
dents in lauding the potential of
MassEducate, a state-funded pro- gram that makes community college free for everyone who meets enrollment require- ments and does not yet have a bachelor’s degree.
go from kindergarten to getting an associate degree as a right in the state of Massachusetts. That’s phenomenal.”
MassReconnect, which the state launched last summer to fully fund tuition, books, and supplies at community college for students over age 25, has already been a “game changer,” said Cook, president of Springfield Technical Community College, contributing to a 15% enrollment increase at STCC from the previous year.
“That’s an almost-unheard-of gain in higher education. And it’s hard not to attri- bute so much of that to the attention of adults on this idea of, ‘oh, I can come back; there’s a pathway for me.’ So it really did
GEORGE TIMMONS