PICKING UP WHERE she left off last year, Senate President Karen Spilka renewed her push for free community college in Massachusetts on Wednesday, touting a new report that lays out a plan to cover all costs for residents attending one of the state’s 15 public two-year schools.
Spilka, joined by the Senate’s top budget writer, the Senate chair of the Legislature’s higher education committee, and several community college presidents, said the report, which pegs the annual cost of such an effort at $170 million, moves the state “one step closer to that vision of free community college for all.”
But plenty of steps remain before such a plan is in place, not least of them getting the House and Gov. Maura Healey on board with a big new outlay at a time of uncertainty over state revenue.
Last year, the Legislature approved a proposal from Healey to cover tuition and fees at community college for all students 25 and older. The state has also funded a program that covers all tuition and fees for all students in nursing programs at community colleges. The two programs together are budgeted at $38 million.
Spilka wants to take those efforts much further, covering tuition and fees for all community college students. The 86-page report released on Wednesday by the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges lays out three potential models – with widely varying price tags – to get there.
The plan described as the “preferred model,” based on input from some 30 stakeholders who served on an advisory group, would cover the cost of tuition and fees for all students, as well as books and supplies, and provide a $2,000 stipend to defray some living costs for lower-income students. The report, prepared by the Boston Consulting Group and funded by a $1 million allocation in the 2024 state budget, puts the annual cost of such a program at $170 million.
A lower cost model, which would only cover tuition and fees, with a modest stipend for books and supplies, is estimated to cost $115 million, while a plan to provide a much larger stipend to low-income students for living expenses would cost $365 million.
Sen. Joanne Comeford, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, called community colleges “one of the great equity engines of our time,” adding that “this is the moment to lean into public higher education.”
The program would provide more aid to the low-income students who make up 60 percent of community college enrollees in the state, but it would also help those from families with higher incomes.
Free community college programs have gained support in a number of states as a way to create a pathway to better jobs for lower-income residents. By 2031, according to a study from Georgetown University, more than 70 percent of all jobs will require some education beyond high school, something that is true of nearly all those jobs providing a gateway to the middle class.
In a recent CommonWealth Beacon essay, former state education secretary Jim Peyser said a free community college program in Tennessee, launched in 2015, led to 45 percent increase in community college enrollment. The program, which includes intensive mentoring and guidance support, saw significantly higher graduation rates for the initial cohort of participants than for the overall student population.
James Vander Hooven, president of Mount Wachusett Community College, said free community college in Massachusetts would be transformational. “This opportunity that we have before us presents, in my lifetime, the greatest opportunity to build on equity and access in higher education,” he said.
Free community college programs can be an attractive option not only for those seeking a two-year degree, but as a cost-saving stepping stone for students who complete an associate’s degree and then transfer to a four-year college. Questions have been raised, however, about whether that is that is necessarily the optimal path for all lower-income students.
A recent analysis of federal Pell grant recipients found that 28 percent of those enrolling in community college in Massachusetts ended up transferring to a four-year institution, but less than half earned a bachelor’s degree. A further concern raised by higher ed experts is that free community college programs could have the unintended consequence of exacerbating a phenomenon known as “undermatching,” in which, Peyser wrote in his recent essay, a student “passes up an opportunity to go to a more selective college with a stronger track record of ensuring first generation or high-need students graduate on time.”
How to fund a free community college effort is likely to be a major challenge for supporters.
Pressed on the initiative’s cost during the same week the governor announced mid-year budget cuts because of lower revenue numbers, Spilka acknowledged the uncertainties of state finances.
“We realize all revenue is cyclical,” she said.
But Spilka and Senate Ways and Means chair Michael Rodrigues insisted that the program could be sustainably funded.
They pointed to the Fair Share amendment, which adds a 4 percent tax on income greater than $1 million, as one potential source of funding. Rodrigues said new revenue forecasts have increased the estimate of how much the millionaire’s tax will generate in fiscal year 2025 from $1 billion to $1.3 billion. Revenue from the surcharge is supposed to be divided equally between education and transportation needs.
“The last thing any of us want to do is start a program and then have to backtrack on it in a few years,” said Rodrigues. “It is affordable, it will be sustainable,” he said of a free community college initiative.
The report estimates that a free community college program would boost enrollment at the schools statewide from 35,000 full-time equivalent slots to 42,000 FTEs and would lead to 3,000 more students obtaining an associate’s degree or finishing a community college certificate program each year.
The report recommends that funding be limited to students who maintain a minimum grade point average of 2.0 and who are earning at least six credits per semester “to encourage persistence and ensure that funds are going to those meaningfully engaged.”
Even with those requirements, the report suggests the program will create added challenges for community colleges, many of which already struggle with low completion rates.
“Expanding wrap-around support will be particularly important with the introduction of free community college, as reduced financial barriers may attract students less academically and socially prepared for college, as well as expanding the number of students from underserved backgrounds who may need more broader supports,” it says.
Community college enrollment has been declining in the state, but Vander Hooven, the Mount Wachusett president, said his campus has seen a 30 percent increase this semester compared with the same time last year.
He attributed that to the new MassReconnect program that covers tuition and fees for all students 25 and older as well as to a state program of wrap-around support, which provides advising, tutoring and other services designed to aid student persistence and success. In 2022, students getting services through the SUCCESS program were 16 percentage points more likely to persist and return to the college the following year than those who did not take part.
The report says a free community college initiative should be accompanied by scaled up funding for the support program. While that could help student success rates, it is one of several additional costs the report identified beyond the estimated $170 million core cost of a free community college program.
The report said expanding the wrap-around service program to all students taking at least 6 credits at community colleges would cost an added $40 to $60 million per year. It also outlined a further $87 million in added annual costs to colleges from expanded enrollment and recommended $15 million in new spending to increase community college faculty salaries.