Page 44 - BusinessWest October 2, 2023

>>
Reconnect
Continued from page 15
she considered the risks and rewards of attending community college and pursue a career in the health- care field.
MassReconnect made it that much easier to meet those challenges head-on.
“I thought it was a great opportunity to go back to school,” she said, adding that her daughter attends daycare around the corner from the campus. “It’s free, or almost free, and that makes it that much easier to go back.”
For Sweeney, who has been unemployed for more than a year now, going back to school seemed like a more fruitful course than trying to test the current job market.
“I wanted to advance myself educationally in order to advance myself in my career,” he said, adding that being able to do so without having to pay for those three courses listed above certainly factored into his decision.
Degrees of Change
Meanwhile, the college administrators we spoke with said MassReconnect is at least partially respon- sible for a surge in enrollment they’re seeing this fall.
Cook said current enrollment at STCC has risen to 4,500, up from 4,000 a year ago. That number is still a long way from the 5,000 recorded in the fall of 2019, the last September before COVID, and a long, long way from the high-water mark of 7,000 notched in 2012, just a few years after the Great Recession.
But it is an important step in the right direction.
“For the first time in a decade, we’ve had a mean- ingful increase in enrollment,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re up 13% to 14%, and there are a number of fac- tors involved with that, including MassReconnect.”
Desjardins agreed. She said the overall student headcount is up by 8.6% over last fall, a significant boost for GCC, one of the smallest community col- leges in the state.
At HCC, enrollment had declined close to 30% during COVID, Hudgik said, adding that this fall, the
Continued from page 12
school has seen its first increase year-over-year since 2010, with a 5.5% increase in total students and a 14% climb in new students, numbers that can be attributed at least in part to MassReconnect.
Beyond these soaring enrollment numbers, though, college administrators are buoyed by the stories behind the numbers — individuals who are returning to community colleges, or finding them for the first time years, and in some cases decades, after they graduated from high school.
And they’re attending school without having to bor- row money, which removes a financial burden that weighs on individuals while they’re working toward a degree or certificate program.
Desjardins noted that the amount of grant aid Mas- sachusetts residents is receiving has increased by 32% at GCC over last year, which represents more than $243,000. Meanwhile, the amount borrowed has dropped by 35%, or $123,000.
“Applications for federal financial aid have gone up by 16%,” she noted. “It could be for various reasons, but with all the attention that MassReconnect is get- ting — and the word is spreading — it’s safe to assume that MassReconnect is a good generator of that increase in financial-aid application.”
Like others, she is encouraged by the manner in which the program has enabled many who were not eligible for financial aid because they exceeded wage limitations to now attend community college without the burden of paying for it directly or taking out loans to be paid back over several years.
“The thing that’s most remarkable to me, in my position, is how low- to middle-income wage earners who have been left out of receiving free dollars for college, like grants and scholarship dollars, are now eligible to get this money to attend college,” Desjar- dins said. “If you were someone who was 25, single, with no children, and you made a little over $30,000 ... before MassReconnect, you may have been eligible for just a few hundred dollars for the entire school year; now, you’re eligible for enough free money to
hopefully, other small businesses. Center Village is an important development for the community, said all those we spoke with, not only because of what is planned for the site, but because of how it might make the town’s center more of a destination and spur additional development.
“It’s an exciting project that could bring more people to Main Street,” Buck said, adding that, while town leaders want to cluster most commercial activ- ity on Boston Road, there is certainly opportunity for development in other areas of town.
Mazzuca agreed, and said bringing new businesses to Wilbraham is overarching mission of what would be called the ‘new’ Economic Development Commit- tee, which has been working on a number of fronts simultaneously.
One has been bringing some of the businesses displaced by the closing and demolition of the nearby Eastfield Mall to the town. The committee helped secure Boston Road addresses for two of them — Mall Barbers and School of Fish — through the use of ARPA funds to help with relocation expenses.
The other major front has been ongoing work to bring more businesses and vibrancy to the downtown area, which, as Smith noted, was more of a destina- tion 30 or 40 years ago, and can be again through developments like the Center Village project and oth-
pay for your tuition and fees, plus give you something toward the cost of books and course materials. That’s huge. Someone who is a low- to middle-wage earner is struggling already to pay their rent, their mortgage, childcare, groceries, gas, and more.”
Hudgik agreed. “Loans are scary,” he said. “Mass- Reconnect allows them to not have to worry about the income threshold; they know the Commonwealth will support them and minimize the amount of loan they have to take out, and bring it to zero if they want.”
And while community college is essentially free for these individuals, the administrators we spoke with said this hasn’t diminished the value of the education their schools provide or lessened the degree of grit and determination behind the decisions to go back to school or attend for the first time.
“What we know to be true about our adult students is that, when they make the decision to come, it is usually with a lot of thought behind it,” Hudgik said. “It’s a fairly big risk for someone who has been out of school for a while to try to restart their school-going mentality. If they’ve decided to come, they’ve usually been pretty serious about it.”
Bottom Line
When asked what it was like to be back on the GCC campus 20 years after he last attended a class there, Sweeney said it was strange on some levels, and there was a period of adjustment, but, overall, he’s comfortable — with both his decision and with being back at school.
“I feel like I’m a different person than I was,” he said, adding that he realizes the importance of a col- lege degree to advancing himself professionally, and just needed some motivation to take this big step.
This is what MassReconnect is all about, and while it will take some time to effectively quantify its impact on many different levels, at the moment, to those sur- veying the scene, it is a qualified success. BW
ers that might come to the drawing board because of
it.
The broad goal, he said, is to create a walkable
downtown and an attractive mix of businesses that will effectively serve those living in Wilbraham and surrounding communities.
“Looking north and south on Main Street, we have a farmers’ market now at the church once a week, and some activity at WMA,” he said. “So we want
to look at the whole picture of the way vehicles and pedestrians interface, and revamp that. The first con- cern would be safety, and the second would be con- venience — and it’s convenience that attracts people. There’s a snowball effect.”
He said similar efforts to revitalize town centers and downtowns are taking place in communities across the country, and those on the committee are looking at what communities of similar size and demograph- ics are undertaking to do some benchmarking and adopt best practices.
“The ultimate goal of the Economic Development Committee is to be a liaison for businesses locating in Wilbraham,” Smith explained. “We want to help out and be a liaison between the municipality, the permit- ting authorities, and the actual businesses, with the ultimate goal of getting that message across that we are open for business.” BW
>>
Wilbraham
support it — like that dining room.”
Progress Report
There has been considerable momentum at WMA generated by several projects in recent years, includ- ing the building of a new athenaeum and conver- sion of the basement of the science building into a 5,000-square-foot innovation lab, and these advances constitute just some of the positive developments on Main Street and beyond in this community of around 14,600.
Michelle Buck, Wilbraham’s Planning and Com- munity Development director, cited several signs of growth and progress across town.
That list includes several new developments on Boston Road, including a new Starbucks now under construction in front of Home Depot, once the site
of a bank branch that was demolished; parking-lot expansion of the Lia Toyota dealership; a new Golden Nozzle car wash; a new fitness center called Cycle
& Praise; and an outdoor dining facility for Route 20 Bar & Grille, as well as a large solar farm soon to be under construction on Three Rivers Road.
But the most visible — and most impactful — devel- opment, she said, is the emerging home for Scantic River Brewery, the ‘new’ Parfumi’s Pizza (the current version is right next door), seven apartments, and,
44 OCTOBER 2, 2023
<< CONTINUED >>
BusinessWest