The Boston Globe reports on MassReconnect, a program to cover community college tuition, has generated hope and relief among Massachusetts community college students. The program, signed into law as part of the state’s fiscal 2024 budget, will cover community college costs for residents over 25 with no prior degrees or certificates. At a press event on Thursday, Governor Maura Healey described her hope that the program will provide affordable education and job opportunities to low-income students, breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. “We can open more doors for older students to restart their education, to come back and finish a degree,” Governor Healey said.
An op-ed for Inside Higher Ed examines the high-tuition, high-discount model of higher education affordability, a model initially meant to make college more accessible to low-income students. The article states that tuition discounts have reached an all-time high, with institutions cutting tuition for first-time undergraduate students by an average of 56 percent this year. David Bushman, a professor at Bridgewater College in rural Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, sees this model as an unsustainable means of incentivizing enrollment at small, private colleges in a time when trust in higher education is at an all-time low, and costs are at an all-time high.