2024-10-10 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Higher Education
2024-10-10 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Higher Education
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Hey. My, my fist. Welcome everyone, to an informational hearing convened by the Joint Committee on Education. It's appropriately back to school time, in the12 Commonwealth, and and so we thought, the14 Joint Committee thought, that it would be16 really an appropriate and important time to sit with our terrific partners in the administration to talk about the historic investments in the whole higher education, what we call the ecosystem, to hear how it's going, to hear how we can be most supportive, vis a vis the legislature,33 and to hear what's next. Right? So this is a warm informational37 hearing. We have 2 speakers today, and we're very,41 very glad to welcome secretary Pat43 Tuthweiler, commissioner Noe Ortega. We've asked them to come. The administration has been49 such willing and, very thoughtful partners throughout this whole arc that we've been on. So it's really a wonderful opportunity to hear directly, from you, secretary and commissioner, and to get to ask some questions and have some exchanges. We made some historic, investments, as you know better than most people in the Commonwealth, in public higher education and higher education writ large, and so we should take that pause. So I want to just, say how glad I am to be, chairing this hearing, with vice chair Carmine Gentile. Rep Gentile, you've been a wonderful partner, and I know chair Rogers and I are very grateful that you're taking the time today to come and lead on behalf of the House, because this is, of course, a joint committee. I also want to thank the senators on the committee. We have senators Ed Kennedy, Paul Mark, Pavel Paianno, and we have ranking member Bruce Tarr, who's a member of this committee. The senators have done good work in this past session, and I know many of them are terrific advocates for education, higher education. So I'm going to turn it over to my great, co chair. He'll welcome the House members, and then we'll get off and running. Again, thanks for everybody, especially, the administration for coming and all of the advocates in the room today. You make us work harder and smarter on behalf of our joint,132 and shared interest, in this ecosystem. So thank you so much for taking the time. Vice chair.
SPEAKER2 - Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Senator. And I wanna thank, representatives, Ryan Hamilton, Sean Garberly, Rodney Elliott, Kath Duffy, Jennifer Armini, Ratti Mong, Mindy Doan, Kelly Peace, and Mark Lombardo for their work on the committee this session. And, I don't see any of them with with us in the chain in the, hearing room at this time, perhaps online later. So thank you very much. Wonderful to see you and and to have this opportunity to to go over the, what's happened this session173 with the historic investment in higher175 education. And, thank you.177
SPEAKER1 - It's wonderful. Senator Kennedy popped on, and as, Co Chair Gentile said, we'll see senators and House members come and go as they, come back or, leave for other events that they have. So last week, many of you know, the secretary and commissioner joined the governor and lieutenant governor, to celebrate free community college, and it was a joyous day, where many of you, some of you were present, and the administration was present, $2,000,000,000 in investment, and I know many of you in this room have tracked the decline in212 investment over time in, higher education, and now, thanks to this administration, and in partnership with the legislature, we're220 taken back up. And so it's it's really just a wonderful opportunity to see how we're how we're doing and where we can be most helpful, as I said earlier. So I'll turn it over to you, secretary, and then, of course, commissioner.
PATRICK TUTWILER - MASSACHUSETTS SECRETARY OF EDUCATION - Thank you, madam chair, and greetings to you, mister vice chair. Being here with you to have this conversation is a real pleasure. Today, I am Pat Tutwiler, secretary of education, and I will admit that I had this date circled on the calendar. I am very much looking forward to discussing how the Healy Driscoll administration, is working to transform higher education, through this shared commitment to students, 1st and foremost, our families, in the state, and our educators. I am joined here by my colleague, Commissioner Ortega, who269 you'll have an opportunity to hear from in just a few moments. I want to say, with the utmost sincerity that I am grateful to him for his partnership but also for his deep commitment to envisioning a stronger higher education system in Massachusetts.
We've been building a system that meets this moment, that focuses on meeting the unmet needs of our students, our educators, and the greater communities, while continuing to strive for a more affordable, more competitive, and more equitable commonwealth. Our work through the Executive Office of Education, follows a framework, for policy development and resource allocation, and this framework, sits on 3 organizing principles. And I believe you've heard me say it before, stabilize, heal, and transform.322 I'm proud of the substantive steps forward that326 we've taken over the past 20 months of the administration, steps that bring us even closer to ensuring that every student, regardless of circumstance, has the opportunity to access higher education, in the Commonwealth, the kind of higher education, high-quality education that they deserve.
And we couldn't have done it346 without the partnership and collaboration we've shared with you, our partners in the legislature. In just our first 2 years, with your support, we've made historic investments, and policy changes that have cemented a strong foundation for stabilizing and healing, and laid the foundation for transformational change. Before I get to all of the good work underway, I do want to acknowledge that we are in a moment, nationally, where data is indicating a declining interest in higher education and K to 12 enrollment is declining.
The demographics of students are also changing with increases in traditionally underrepresented students. To keep us competitive, we need to keep pace with the changes in instructional technologies and align our efforts with employer workforce needs, particularly in the STEM fields. While there are many challenges, there are also real opportunities for institutions to shift and meet current student and employer needs. The administration has been focused on reinforcing pathways that allow high school students, all high school students, to access higher education through a variety of initiatives. Madam Chair, you mentioned that the ecosystem is426 inclusive of high school. I wanna say just a little bit about the work that we're that we're doing there. Absolutely. We expanded the early college program.
Oh, excuse me. We want to ensure that students, learn what students learn in high school helps them get to where they need to go, which is why our Reimagining High School initiative has been critical, including transformational programs like Innovation Career Pathways, Early College and451 Career Technical Education. We expanded the early college program, which we456 expect this year will support more458 than 10,000 students. Mind you, 6 years ago when it started, it had approximately 700 students. There are now 53 designated early college program partnerships across 61 high schools and 2,128 institutions of higher learning in the Commonwealth. That's great. In Massachusetts, 12th-grade early participants are majority black and Latino. This is important to sort of underscore the equity initiative at work and evenly split between low-income and non-low-income491 students.
Early college participation increases college enrollment for all racial groups but makes the biggest difference for Latino students, who historically have been the least likely to matriculate to college. For the last several years, Massachusetts has continued to rank 1st in the nation for the percentage of graduating high school seniors who scored 3 or higher on advanced placement or AP517 exams. We know that students who519 take AP courses in high school are more likely to enroll in a 4-year college and perform better525 in introductory college courses. The administration has been focused on expanding access to AP courses and making the test free and affordable so all students can excel.
We have subsidized exam fees for low-income students and expanded the number of high schools that offer AP courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. And we are starting to see that work pay off. Last year, Massachusetts was among the states with the highest 10-year gains in the percentage of Latino and, black students who are taking561 AP exams. We563 increased the participation of, Latino students by 16% compared to 2013,569 and 10% in that same, period for for black students. A diverse higher education student body is not only about ensuring that all students have equitable581 access to achieve their economic mobility goals but also makes for better institutions.
589 Ahead589 of the Supreme Court's decision on the legality of race-based higher education admissions criteria, the admissions administration formed the Advisory Council for the Advancement of Representation in Education and expanded, access to college and career readiness tools for current Massachusetts students. We look forward to releasing more information on the council's work in the coming weeks, actually next week, at an event, in Westfield, which we're excited about. At the same time, we proactively made, the MEFA Pathway, an online college and career planning resource, available to all students in Massachusetts through a comprehensive outreach campaign targeting Gateway Communities First.
We expanded professional development offerings for educators about the free My Career and Academic Plan, or MICAP, to 50 new high schools and 50 new middle schools through a 6 $100,000646 grant sponsored by the Department of648 Elementary in Secondary Ed. We know that there is more work to be done, but I'm proud of the progress we've made to support all students in seeing higher education as an opportunity for them. In addition to strengthening662 that pathway from our secondary education to experiences in higher education, we've668 been steadfast in promoting access and affordability once students get to higher education, making nation-leading changes to the system.
With your support, and I thank you again, we delivered Mass Reconnect last year, a free community colleges college experience for residents aged 25 and older. In the 1st year of Mass Reconnect, we saw nearly a 45% increase in students aged 25 years and older enrolling in community college. Importantly, the new students drove an 8% overall enrollment growth in Massachusetts Community Colleges, notably, reversing decades of711 declines. And713 just recently, as Madam Chair, mentioned, we celebrated with you the launch of Mass Educate,719 expanding free community college residents regardless of age or income, Massachusetts now has 1 of the most accessible, equitable, and comprehensive free community college programs in the country for full and part-time students, again, regardless of income.
These life changing, opportunities do not happen on their own. Together, we've doubled state spending on financial aid, adding over $200,000,000 in the past 2 years. Through these investments, we have been able to make historic financial aid expansion at UMass and our state universities for Pell-eligible students and middle-income students. Now, students who make up to $85,000 a year before taxes, Their families, included, can attend public 4-year college or university tuition and fee-free. Families who make between $85,000 and $100,000 a year before taxes can have their tuition and fees reduced by up to half. We're also focused on designing the larger financial aid system to make it easier for students to795 understand and access it, and to streamline this process for families and higher education institutions. I want to thank803 you, for your leadership in establishing tuition equity, huge in Massachusetts.
This is the opportunity to allow for undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition and, state-based financial aid. With your support and expanded success funding, this year we are focused not only on helping students get to higher education, but most importantly, on helping them persist through completion. That, to us, is the golden nugget. All of our public higher education institutions face a considerable backlog, transitioning to a notable, challenge that, we wanna make sure we discuss with you today. A notable backlog of deferred maintenance, as well as decarbonization and modern modernization needs. Many higher education, facilities are now over 40 years in age, and we look forward to working with the legislature and our administrative colleagues on a new work group to study the needs, and to identify the opportunities and funding strategies by the end of this calendar year so that we can make progress in this, really important space.
Massachusetts has an education system to be proud of, one of the best in the country, yet there remain far too884 many vast inequities and opportunities and educational outcomes for students across racial and ethnic groups, zip codes, income levels, languages, and for students with disabilities. They are felt as students and families grapple with housing insecurity, food instability, or the many difficulties that come with being a newly arrived immigrant in a place far from home. As we see a resurgence in public higher education enrollment in Massachusetts, we have a critical opportunity to think about how we're preparing our campuses for the future and closing those persistent equity gaps. Every Massachusetts student doesn't just deserve an education. They deserve the best education, no matter their circumstances. Because933 when our students reach their935 potential, Massachusetts does too. I wanna thank you for your continued partnership in this work. And with that, I will turn it to my colleague, commissioner Ortega. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, mister secretary. And I wanna recognize that senator Paolo is with us as well on the teams. Thank you very much, mister secretary.
NOE ORTEGA - MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION - Fantastic. And thank you, mister secretary, as well. Thank you, chair Commerford, Feisier Dentale as well for the opportunity to come before you. I wanna thank everyone who's joined us here today, both in the room virtually as well, as esteemed colleagues who are all around you, for coming today. I'm Noe Ortega. I have had the honor of serving as commissioner for higher education here in Massachusetts to work alongside Secretary Rottweiler for almost a year and a half now, going on too. So it's been exciting. A little bit about myself, because this is my chance to introduce myself to the joint higher education committee or reintroduce myself to some of you.
You know, I often say in several places that I speak that I'm not originally from Massachusetts. I made my way here via Texas. Right? And it's a big part of my personality. I say that for 2 reasons. 1, to be able to highlight some of the lived experiences I've had in my career, being from rural parts of Texas, growing up as a migrant from a migrant labor family as well, but also as an excuse. As I go through presentations and I mispronounce the various cities of Massachusetts, 1 of the reasons is because, often it's hard for someone who's not originally from here, so I put that out there. A couple of things.
My career has spanned almost 3 decades in higher education. I've spent some time in education in 2 countries where I worked in, higher education policy in several states from Texas to Pennsylvania and now Massachusetts. And I share this with you because never in the 30 years that I've been in this role has I seen such significant investments in higher education, particularly public higher education. As I walk through some slides that I prepared today, this is sort of the story that I'm going to paint for everyone in terms of the work of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, yourself as leaders in, the legislature, but also the administration and the department as well. Right? Several folks have played a role in shaping so many of the policies. Kudos to, our partners in the higher education system who are out there, and our advocacy groups as well.
And this work could not be done without key individuals helping to do all this work. Right? So if I may, before I proceed, I would like to sort of draw your attention to the individuals sitting behind us here, My team who has done a tremendous amount of of work from Jose Luis to Matt Cole to Michael Dannenberg to Nicole Johnson. Alex is moving around the room here who everybody knows as well and probably numbers others like Doctor Mercury and others who help with financial aid. We've been working alongside folks like Bob LePage, Casey, and Kate as well, to get a lot of this work done. And I think it's important to note that we could not do it without them. And anyone who I left out, my apologies, because I'm trying to sort of get right to sort of the deck.
This is also an opportunity to introduce you to the work of the department. Right? Behind us is a picture of our board of higher education at our recent retreat that took place in September as we said to kind of1145 plan for what we wanna prioritize over the next year. We are the1149 staff of a 13-member board, 9 members appointed by the governor. The secretary sits on our board as well. Segmental representatives are representing UMass, the state UHs, and the community colleges, and there are also students serving on our board, a very important voice that shares their perspective with the individuals who are on this board making decisions. Right? In addition to, what we have as the makeup of the agency, I wanna highlight how we approach the work of the department. We lead in a strategic direction, to make sure that there are continuous improvement, right, and accountability efforts in Massachusetts as well.
We advocate for students and families continuously. We advance state efforts, putting in place many of the policies and programs1199 that come from the legislature and administration, but also other programs that have been in place for some time to make the ecosystem of higher education work.1207 And then we uphold the quality and value of the programs offered in Massachusetts to make sure that every learner in Massachusetts not only has access to affordable and equitable opportunities in higher education, but high quality as well that are accountable to the system. Who do we serve? We have about 109 institutions of higher education within the department's oversight, 80 private institutions of higher education, and 29 public institutions. You can see there, that they serve almost 600,000 students in the Commonwealth and employ between 150 to almost 160,000 faculty and staff as well. Not much is really when I talk about who we serve, like, here's an example of the public aspects and 2 including our coordinating activities as well as of the governing authority that we have over many of the institutions.
I put this out to you so you can get a sense of the work that's being done in many of the core processes of the department. I won't spend a whole lot of time unpacking there, but those serve as the levers for how we go about, preceding our work, here in Massachusetts. What's less talked about is we also have some purview over the independent institutions of higher education here in Massachusetts as well. Many of the private institutions do have some accountability aspects that work with the department. So we're going out there to make sure that we can ensure quality, but also continue to voice any of the issues, concerns, or even highlights that our institutions want to achieve. So it's a little bit about the department, who we are, what we do, and who we serve. I wanna spend some time unpacking some of the things that Secretary Tuckweiler highlighted in his opening remarks and organize them around1312 some very clear priorities that the department1314 has.
We have a priority committed to1316 access, access for all students of the Commonwealth into our post-secondary institutions. We have a commitment that we've also made to prioritizing affordability. We've been working very closely with the legislature over the past couple of years where this is something that we've tackled together, to make, institutions not just accessible but affordable, But we also prioritize student success, which is part of the bigger narrative of how we wanna make sure that we're serving our students, our learners, but also working with our institutions to make sure we meet the expectations of this promise we've1349 made for students to go into higher education. We also have emphasized as a priority why our students go to college and university. There are many public good outcomes associated with higher education, many of the contributions that institutions in Massachusetts have made, not just to the state or the country, but to the world, which are very important to talk about.
But we also wanna emphasize that for many students, particularly those who've been historically underserved, individuals like myself, coming from a rural part, maybe first-generation students going into higher education, having a better life is increased it's increasingly important to them. Upward socioeconomic mobility matters tremendously, and we wanna make sure as a department that we start talking about that as an important priority and outcome for our students in higher education. And, of course, there's the equity idea that underlines all of our work and priorities in the department. The idea is that post-secondary access needs to be equitable for all. Secretary Rottweiler highlighted how Massachusetts is a leader in education.
What we also wanna point out is that we got we can't be the leader for some. We've got to be the leader for all, and that is an important idea. How these priorities began to translate into strategies for the department is an example of how we approach affordability, access, and outreach in many of the things that we do at the department. Some of them are informed by investments in financial aid, such as free community college, but also free public 4-year tuition-free for historically, underserved and students who have high need, tuition equity, which removes barriers, but also working with our high schools.
As Secretary Rottweiler points out, I think this is an important aspect of the way that we work together, not just with this agency, but with multiple agencies. We recognize that absent the fundamental knowledge, tools, and skills in the early education to K12 part of a student's compulsory education, they will not have the ability to be successful in college. And so we wanna make sure that we understand the alignment and how to work together. So here are some examples of how that outreach happens as well, and I'll also end by saying that many of the investments that have been made recently highlight an important value principle that recognizes the population that we need to be talking about more in our institutions of higher education, and that is adult learners. Those who are over the age of 25, which a program like Mass Reconnect targets are very much becoming the new tradition at our college campuses, and we've gotta think about how our policies and practices serve them as well. I'm gonna paint a story as we go through these slides1506 around those priorities. I'm gonna begin with affordability.
Many, conversations are happening around the country about the value1514 of higher education. People are questioning the fundamental, outcomes associated with higher education that I know many of us in this room have benefited from and many of us continue to advocate and talk about. Affordability has been something that has resulted in people questioning whether or not college is for them because they can no longer afford it. And I'm not talking about just the cost of tuition and fees. It's these other costs that tend to be described as hidden that affect the ability of a student or a learner to engage with higher education, persist, and complete. Things like housing, food, childcare, and the list could go on and on depending on the circumstances of students. What we've done here in partnership with you is be able to increase more than double our investments in financial aid leading to better affordability for our students by $200,000,000 across the board.
And if I may quote a colleague that I've been working with very closely sitting here on this table, we're not done yet. We've got a lot more work to do about what we need to do to make college affordable, but this gives you a sense of just in the last 2 years what has been accomplished going from about 180,000,000 to nearly 400,000,000 in investment. What this looks like for our students, it meets the needs1595 of what they're asking for. It doesn't matter where we visit around the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Everybody will tell you how college is something that they often have to put other things on hold, and many things, think things that draw them out of a postsecondary pathway later in life, like family, jobs, taking care not of just their own family, but their immediate family, parents, grandparents, etcetera.
Many are struggling with regards to how they're gonna be able to even, do the things that are required for students who engage in learning. Right? If you're going to go to, 1 of our colleges to become a nurse, there's an expectation that you have an internship, or apprenticeship that goes along with that, and those are all expensive things. And so programs like Mass Reconnect, which we launched 2 years ago, really invite a number of our adult learners back onto our campuses at no cost of tuition and fee to them, and with a modest allowance to help them with books as well. We've been promoting programs like this through digital ads, and launch events around the country, some of which we described today like we were at a couple of, maybe just last week. We also understand that investments like this cost money and the nd capacity of our institutions to stand up.
And so we're also making sure that we're mindful of what it means to stand up a free college program at a community college by making sure that we provide our institutions with those resources. I'll skip to, this other expansion, and I'll go back to how it's impacted. But here we have an expansion also to help our traditional students coming out of our high schools, the 18 to 24-year-olds that we talk about, pretty routinely, but especially those who have shown high needs when they're coming to our campuses. We were able to take some of the investments that you gave us last year, if you recall, an additional 80, 84,000,000 if we combine the 2 past years to leverage and create free colleprogramsram at our 4-year universities.
This is both StateUWS and UMass, offering all-eligible students the same kind of, opportunities for them to afford college, but also at the middle class, reducing their out-of-pocket expenses by almost half with tuition and fees. What this has done, preliminarily is just evidence that I would say is primarily, a result of programs we launched 2 years ago. We've begun to see a reversal in trends of declines in enrollments at our public colleges and institutions. Where this has been the most pronounced is at our community colleges. Right?
In many ways, that does speak to the investment of Mass Reconnect and the impact of it's had. It's increased by 8.7%, after a decade of decline, and we've seen that increase in the 25 and older population. We hope that that has the same impact, Mass Educate, the most recent program has the same impact. But here are some thoughts that were shared with us by students as we go around, as well as staff working in institutions. Students are renewing their faith in places like the Department of Higher Education government is here to help them and provide them with uplift and access as well.
You're also seeing folks talk about it and saying that, well, we're gonna go back and share these in our communities where maybe this message hasn't been resonating in the past. We're also seeing many of the staff share with us that when a student walks in and hears the financial aid country they're asking a question about whether or not they'd be able to afford college, someone saying, yes, you can, and it's free, just their lights their eyes light up, and they feel enthused that this is something that can they can do. Most recently, I put this picture up here because, to us, this represents something that we wanna continue to work for. This isn't an event we were all at recently, Senator Comerford. I think, a number of us were there to celebrate the launch of Mass Educate, the newest free community collegprogramms we have here, which has allowed us now to extend the MasRecec reconnect, opportunities to everybody enrolling in our community. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Although they're they're nice guys too.
ORTEGA - Thank you. I appreciate that. But central to this is the leadership that has been shown by key leaders, Senator Comerford, senator Spylka, you know, Governor Healy, attorney General, lieutenant, Governor Driscoll as well, powerful and fierce women leading unapologetically on behalf of higher education, and I know you could not have done this without the support of your colleagues as well both in the Senate and in the house to make sure that this comes through, but it's changed life. And we spent almost an hour on that day, I believe, sitting there with students who each told us their story and each 1 of1881 them pulled at our heartstrings and reminded us why we do this.
I mean, all the challenges that it takes to promulgate cutting-edge legislation such as this, it makes a big difference when the students come in the room and they tell on themselves how it's changed their life. And so it's for us a picture to hold up for aspirational. Now this means nothing if we cannot get the word out to students and families. We're working together with various agencies, most recently in partnership with the Executive Office of Education. We've launched a website that allows people to visit and find more information on the various free college opportunities we have here in Massachusetts.
We're working with our institutional partners as well to promote the message. We're working with several individuals to make sure1925 that the individuals who we1927 need to serve find out that these programs are available. So affordability is important, but access efforts coupled with affordability are important to make sure that we get more students on our campus. 1 of the most significant legislations that have been put in place over the past, now is it 2 years or a year and a half? It's a tuition equity law that allows undocumented students to gain access not just to in-state tuition at our colleges and universities, but to our financial aid programs. Very few states can boast of the fact that they do both.
Many will do in-state tuition for undocumented, students. So we've joined that family of states that are out there providing opportunities, but to extend the provision of your financial aid programs as well makes a big difference because, for many, that has been the reason why they have not been able to engage with college. And when I think about the solution to many of our workforce concerns, immigrants, and migrants represent a huge way to be able to serve and provide more healthcare workers, and more people to go into various industries to make a difference in the Commonwealth. So to us, it's an important access aspect. To make sure that people can access higher education in our financial aid programs, it takes work to make sure that we have an infrastructure.
We had to launch a financial aid application just for the state of Massachusetts last year to ensure that undocumented students can access our financial aid program. We were to do this in record time. Granted, we wish we were able to do this in 1 week or 2 weeks to make sure that we were ready to do this by the start of the first, fall when this became available for students, But within 3 and a half months, we were able to stand up a full running financial aid state application for undocumented students. And since then, we've served nearly 4,100 students. We continue to serve more as more become aware. This is a huge endeavor that was led by several folks, both our team here at the department that helped build it, but also advocacy groups that made sure that what we were building was serving the students who we were intended to serve, and that's important. This past year, as you recall, the Department of2061 Education did make some much-needed updates to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.2067
That's the FAFSA form that students use2069 to fill out and apply for financial aid. It was something that maybe did not come to fruition as quickly as the Department of Education wanted it to. This is the Federal Department of Education, not us, mister Secretary. Nevertheless, it did affect us. It affected the students who were looking to apply, and it especially affected those students who are first generation, who are probably engaging with higher education for the first time.
So we rushed quickly to work and set up some partnerships to encourage more students to fill out the form with cross-agency collaborations across the teams both with the Department of Higher education and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. We worked with the public, and groups that also serve the Commonwealth like NEFA. We worked with GEAR UP to be able to go into some of the schools that they serve already to provide more opportunities and more counseling for financial aid and post-secondary planning.
We created, programs in various areas around the state. You know, we went to some of our gateway cities. We partnered with a number of our institutions to make sure that that reach went beyond those cities and into the rural areas as well. We took advantage of every possible partnership that could come, and we continue to do so, including making sure that we have ads and ad campaigns launched around the state. Here's what we were able to do, and I will warn us this preliminary information because the effects of the FAFSA delay are gonna be seen throughout the year, but we were able to bring our FAFSA completions back up to where they almost were a year ago, which is not the same story that's being told by various states. Massachusetts has routinely enjoyed higher or above the national average in terms of the number of students who fill out the form, but as you can see here, it has been declining over the past several years.
And where it probably has seen the most decline is in our populations that are historically disadvantaged. Right? Particularly those who, have to overcome things like economic challenges, but also, who are struggling with other, things as well. And so this to us is an important portrait of how much work is still left to do to make sure that this number goes from 50% to almost 100%. It's hard to sort of understand entirely what prevents individuals from engaging with the federal form.
You know, if, as we try to ask more students, we always uncover something new, but we're certainly working to address this. And I think in partnership with the legislature, we'd like to be able to do more in this area. Early College, as was mentioned by Secretary Tufweiler, does a lot to promote access. What this does, is it helps build, academic self-esteem among learners in high school who may have not otherwise2237 felt that they were ready to go to college, many of them just by being2241 able to take a class that's college level and be able to do so at no cost to themselves, feel the confidence to continue and move into a post-secondary pathway.
Many of these students increase the likelihood of going to college. It increases the likelihood of going to a 2-year and 4 years, And as we're finding, it increases the likelihood of also being able to persist and2262 ultimately complete their studies. So an important aspect in terms of access for the department. Success. 1 of the things that I hope we can work together on is it would be important to see the same level of investments in success that we're seeing in affordability in Massachusetts.
The reason is, that it's not enough to just make a promise to students that college is affordable. They need to know that when they get there, they can persist and complete and then go on to serve the Commonwealth of mass as Massachusetts as many of the graduates of our public colleges and universities do. They stay, they serve, and they work2297 here in the Commonwealth. Here's sort of a chart that shows you what success efforts take. There are several needs that students have from mental health to academic support to things that stem beyond what's offered in the classroom, and these are all things that are very expensive to provide for our students.
Right? So when we think about the disinvestment center at Comerford, as you mentioned in the beginning, which is trending in the right direction now, we're moving up, which is fantastic, it still means that for some time, we've asked our public institutions or all our institutions to do more with less. Right? When we know the expectations of students coming in are increasingly twofold, and this shows us what that is. Wraparound services and high-touch wraparound services are important and expensive and require us to make sure that we have the kind of staffing and training for our students to be served. This gives you an idea of what that entails. What I will call out is the thing at the bottom of this slide.
We have doubled our investments and success in the past year, and that's something to be proud of. Taking a community college program, a program that once served our community colleges and expanded into the state use, and I hope this is 1 of those areas where we're also not done yet to make sure that we provide, our institutions with the kind of resources needed to serve these students adequately. I'll move now to a few things that I think are important to highlight, some committees and commissions that came out of the most recent budget that I think are important to call attention to. 3 that stand out in this slide, they're not limited to 3. There's other work that we're doing as I'll point out. It's the Commission on Higher education Quality and Affordability, section 215 that we're calling for shorthand.
This task force is gonna come together to complete or continue to move the needle on things that we need to do in terms of affordability and quality of our institutions of higher education. We also have a committee working on a much-needed area of investment in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is capital needs, a working group coming together to address that as well. And then most recently, we've been, given a mandate to bring together and renew the work on mass transfer, recognizing that the investments that we're making in things like free community colleges, find ways to help students get into our 4 years and transfer across the system. Important work to call out there. Here's just kind of an overview of the language, which I'm sure you know. I think what's important about the quality, and affordability task force is the things that it will focus on. Right? Assistance programs, including financial aid, but also cost of attendance. Right?
As we move into a free college environment, cost transparency is extremely important for our students and families. Debt is another thing that this would, be taking on on as well. Programs that improve student success are another focus. Retention and recruitment of faculty and staff, which, is important if we're gonna make sure that there's a quality provision of post-secondary unities for our students, and then financial assistance. Here's a quick overview of the timeline.
You know, I'm pleased to announce that we are beginning to reach out to members of the quality and task force committee, Comerford. I think you may have received an invite from us letting you know that we're going to hold a meeting in November, and this is kind of a timeline of the work that this group will do. It's gotta move very quickly to make sure that we do and meet all the milestones, but we've got great staff working on this. The capital needs work group, which I understand is meeting today, in fact, this afternoon. Here are some of the things that it's focusing on.
One thing that I do wanna point out2514 is when you think about the capital needs of our2516 institutions, when you think about how important this investment is, you kinda have to go back in time to when many of these institutions were developed, right, several decades ago. And so when you think what it means to have maybe a home that we live in that was built in 19 sixties, 40, 50, 60 years later, there's a lot of improvement that needs to happen, particularly when you think about some of the contemporary needs and expectations that our institutions have. There are estimates that this is anywhere between $4,500,000,000. If you look at the bullets before it, if we're gonna get anywhere near getting to that dollar amount, we're gonna have to become creative on how we leverage the, 150 to $250,000,000 that you've seen invested in cycles over time in this particular area.
Lastly, I'll end with the mass transfer group, which was recently named, we're hoping to have a meeting with this group in the fall, but this is a committee that will be a standing committee, not just for this year, in perpetuity to take on such things as a common course numbering system and improving the students' experience as well with regards to this. I'll end with the last priority, which is equity because this is, across all the work that we do, and I'll highlight something very important to call attention to. A year ago, when we were, getting ready to start the year, we all heard that the Supreme Court was going to take action to ban race barace-basedions at our colleges and universities.
Central in that debate was 1 of our institutions down the Charles. Won't call it out, but never engaged in a national, concern around removing some of the things that have helped uplift historically marginalized communities to enter many of our institutions. And while we were waiting for that to happen, Governor Healey reached out to the secretary and me and said, I wanna form2625 a task force, an advisory council for the advancement of representation in education, and I want members of the community to be a part of this because we need to talk about how to continue to position Massachusetts in the fight to ensure that we're committed to the diversity, equity, and inclusion in everything that we do.
We brought folks together. In a week, we're getting ready to announce some of the recommendations that do a lot, and it couldn't be more timely. If you read the same periodicals and blogs that I do, you can see the impact of declines in enrollment, particularly among students of color at many of our institutions acting in ways that many of us predicted. So the work of a group like this is gonna be extremely important, but also to make sure that the department continues to uphold its principles and or its guiding principles on equities as well.
This is a quick timeline of I just kind of describe when I got started and how we're going to progress forward. And I'll end here by just calling attention to everybody. This is what we prioritize over the next several years that we want to achieve. We want to make sure that we're not just a state that's seen as doing everything, but we wanna be really good for all of the key things that I think will move the needle in terms of access. Thank you for sitting through that long presentation and narrative, and now I'll turn to you, sSenatorCummer, to see if or vice chair Gentile to sherehere areaare anystions we might be able to answer. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Thank you very much. That was a tour de force, and we're very, very grateful. Secretary, I'm mindful of your pressed schedule. So the secretary will stay with us for as long as he can before heading to a meeting with the governor, and we're grateful. Thank you both. You know, and 1 thing I just wanna call out to all of us here, part of the reason we're able to do the work we're doing in the legislature in partnership with the administration is, of course, the Fair Share Act, and the revenue that we have, thanks to the Massachusetts2737 voters, thanks to the partnership2739 to be able to invest in this ecosystem,2741 and I'm thrilled that we're talking today in the2745 broadest possible terms about the total cost of educating our kids. It's smart with this resource to put it to use in the best possible way. So I'll start with some questions, and then we have colleagues online. We have colleagues here, and then we'll proceed. We'll go back and forth.
SPEAKER4 - Did you wanna
SPEAKER1 - say anything?
SPEAKER2 - I just wanted to acknowledge, representative Sean Garberly who's joined us.
SPEAKER1 - Great. Thank you.
SPEAKER2 - And, here to my left and also online, we have representative Kelly Peace joining us.
SPEAKER1 - Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Mister chair. Alright.
SEN COMERFORD - So, let's get right into the institutions of public higher education and higher education writ large. So I have several questions, and again, I won't ask all of them now. I'll yield to my colleagues, but we're talking a lot about the well-being of students, and I want to talk about the well-being of students, and I think you both do too. And then I think about these institutions, and I'm here, I'm talking about 2 years, 4 years, and I'm talking about the privates. Right? And I wanna talk about the impact, the long term impact that we've seen, the short term now and the potential long term impact of these seismic investments, which is I think all that we're all trying to do in the name of equity and our, you know, future generations and the impact on the Commonwealth.
So let's talk about the workforce, which is 1 of the strains that we're hearing about. I think it's pretty public that we're hearing about this, everything from the use of adjuncts in 4-year colleges and 2-year colleges, and then, the growing also I'll call them growing pains, growing edges in community colleges, as we, you know,2853 welcome in this influx of students, which again is beautiful. And what we saw I wish everybody could have been where we were last week, hearing the stories of the young people whose lives are transformed. And young people and, you know, young adults, middle, you know, middle-aged adults who are having these opportunities, afforded to them.
But you know, it's a lot of work in these institutions. So let's talk about salaries, and reliance on adjuncts and how you're thinking about it. There's been a lot of stories around the globe and elsewhere about, the suppressed salaries, for example, at the community college level, and then the reliance of that on adjuncts has been a long conversation that I know you've had and the legislature has had, and I wonder about the sort of where we're going in these conversations. And if we see that that beautiful line tick up, right, we'll have more capital, that's for sure, in these institutions, and hopefully, it's part of a virtuous cycle, but that's probably not gonna be everything we need, to be able to invest in the faculty and staff and administration that we need to catch these students.
And let me just say, 1 of the things I love about success, and I'd love to talk about success, is that it's an infusion not only for our students, but it's a win-win, because the institutions get money, to be able to do the work, but overall in faculty salaries, in reliance on adjuncts, how are you looking at those issues as we go? Again, in the we're not done yet, we're gonna look at this, you know, everything great and warts and all. Right? So that we can get it better and better and better as we work together. I'd love to understand that.
TUTWILER - No. I'm gonna let you handle that2957 part of the last part of the question there, commissioner, but I do wanna just quickly address, the first part of your commentary, madam chair, about mental health, and just name that thanks to, your support. There is a $5,000,000, allocation in the f y 25 budget, that allows us to deepen existing mental health strategies, allows us to deepen existing mental health strategies, in the early education space in fiscal and, also in higher education. But it also, I think, importantly, allows us to do to create something that does not exist in Massachusetts. And frankly, I don't know of another state where it does.
And that is to build out more robustly a framework for mental health from birth through higher education and allows us to create, as a commissioner, something that the commissioner often refers to as systemness, around a shared definition of the mental health challenge in each 1 of them, those sectors, a real sort of dropping in anchor in best practice and an understanding of what best practice is. And I think most importantly, which does not exist robustly in Massachusetts is how do we know that all these efforts are working? How do we know that things are getting better? What are the systems, the data structures that we need to build to ensure progress monitoring, and our efforts in the mental health space? There is, that opportunity, and we're well we're hard at work right now thanks to your partnership and beginning to build out that framework.
COMERFORD - It's so important. And that's on top of success. Right? That's that's important for us to see the scaffolding, that's being built. Thank you. That's important.
ORTEGA - And I'll answer, Senator Comerford. And I think this question is really important. Right? And I'll point out one thing which regards the question around salary and, you know, particularly as it relates to faculty and staff. 1 of the things that you'll note on the authorities and, regulatory items of the department is we are the lead negotiator on contracts with faculty and staff. Legal counsel behind me, will jump up and say, hey, you cannot comment on any of these things because we have ongoing, negotiations even right now with the m triple c on some contracts. I wanna point that out because how I'm gonna frame my response around your question is focusing on the aspect that, as a department, we commit that we are here to create conditions where every learner has access, equitable access, to affordable and high-quality post-secondary3117 opportunities.3117
But we often leave the idea of quality to be vague and interpreted by the person who's listening to3125 it. Right? 1 of the commitments that I've made in the time that I've been here is that we need to operationalize quality and talk about it in a way that sheds light on what we mean. And for us, we mean 2 key things. In the quality provision is this idea that we highlighted earlier about facilities. Quality for students going into these institutions has to come in the areas that they're occupying or coming into to learn. These have to be of the highest quality, have to be world our institutions must be world-class. Agree. The second aspect of the quality conversation is human capital, which to us is extremely important. You cannot get to the kind of quality achievements that we're talking about without investing in both of those items. Right?
And so, for me, we must think about what that means in terms of investment. What the department does do is in the area where it's been given a little bit of discretion with regards to the usage of resources, we make sure that they're leveraged in that way. You mentioned 1, Senator Comerford, which is a success. Being able to leverage success in ways that people can begin to build cap capacity, at the institutions. Now I don't want to misrepresent that that means that people are now making more and it resolves, but at least there's enough to bring in folks, to be compensated to do some of the lifting in that area. The second and 1 best example is when we were working with the nursing funds that were created, that were provided a year ago to help address some of the needs in the workforce around nursing.
We leveraged some of those funds to address the need to make, the programs more affordable for students, but we were able to use the other funds to provide capacity grants to all the institutions at the community colleges, in particular, to be able to use in ways where now they can do things like compete for nursing faculty who are leaving our institutions and going to work in the private sector in many areas because they can earn more. Right? And so to avoid that, people will leave or not stay at our institutions, we've gotta solve this. That's why I'm glad that the, we're calling it CHICA for short, but this is the Commission on Higher Education Quality
COMERFORD - Unlike CHICA. And affordable That's a good idea.
ORTEGA - That's 1 of the things that we're gonna have to take on to make sure that we address it. And then in areas, and I think mental health is a perfect example, and I'd be remiss if I did not call attention to it, not 1 institutional leader that I meet with leaves the meeting without mentioning that they're seeing a big, a big need among faculty and staff to address mental health and well-being. In many ways, maybe 1 of the things that we could start to do is to leverage some of the resources that we get for the department that has some discretion and provide grants that improve those circumstances for them.
Student service providers, who in many ways are those who have to serve many of the wrap-around services and holistic needs of our students are stretched. They're not the most well-compensated. Right? I entered higher ed as a financial aid officer. Think about the enormous pressure being put at the moment on financial aid because of the implementation of all these programs. It's tremendous. And we were never the folks that were paid the most at an institution, but we were the ones who were committed to serving all the students who walked into the door. We were seen as gatekeepers, in many ways for several students because if we did not invite them in and help them answer the questions of how they would afford college, they would leave the campuses. So, Senator Commerford, that's my way of answering to us.
It's extremely important. On the piece of, adjuncts, I know that's the thing that's, playing out in several institutions, and I don't want to fail to answer that. As we look for institutions to adapt to some of the changes, and you saw the growth among the 25 and over in community colleges, they have to move quickly to be able to address the needs that these students will have in the classroom, and often that's done with adjunct contingent faculty at our institutions. And so I think that's something we wanna be mindful of. Are there ways that we could rethink even benefits for them in some cases? Because I think that's an area where you don't see they don't have the same offerings as a full-time, employee, and I think those are questions that need to be brought up and talked about more mindfully, and I am aware of them.
COMERFORD - Yeah. No. I know commissioner, you are. And I think that's important. Health care, for example, sick time, and can we start as a commonwealth to see the numbers of courses that adjuncts teach even across multiple institutions is stacking up, and can we start to help them, make a wage, that can help them and their families. So I'm gonna yield and see if my, colleagues have questions, and then I'll come back.
REP LAWRENCE - I think, senator, as you on this subject that you put up of the compensation, I'm informed that the average community college instructor earns about $68,200 $324 a year, which is about 20,000 less than the typical pay at locals, state universities, in the Commonwealth. And, and noting also that3432 our public school teachers, by comparison, made an average of $86,118 a year. So you're in negotiations, so I just note that. But I wanted to ask, you know, we know that there are many thousands of students that are enrolled in community college at 1 point. We have 100 of 1,000 of of of people who have stopped, you know, their their education. And, they had to put their education3464 on pause for financial or or personal reasons. I'm hoping you might talk more about how we're working to reengage those former students.
ORTEGA - Would love to. And, I'm gonna look back just to make sure I get this number right. Is Massachusetts 700,000 some college delivery or is it 70,000? 700,000. Alright. There we go. So I just wanna make sure I didn't3488 misrepresent the number.
COMERFORD - That's good.
ORTEGA - So there are about 700,000 students with some college, no degree. Right? Who did the 1 thing that to us is frustrating when someone incomplete is that they did everything frustrating when someone doesn't complete is that they did everything to get enrolled in the institution. They opted into the system, but somehow we're not able to complete it. And I don't wanna lump them all into 1 category. The reasons are varied and there are many.
And so we've been moving towards doing some things to help those students. 1 of the areas is we're moving into embracing sort of, innovation as part of our, work here at the department particularly technology-enabled innovation. We've reached out to groups, some of them that I'll call out, like for example, REUP and others who have been doing phenomenal work in attracting students with some college, no degree, to come back into our institutions of higher education to say,3541 how might we as a state be able to lend a hand in doing3545 that? Right?
These interventions that they use are extremely high-touch. So they reach out to folks, find out why you left, and, and then try to bring you back into the institution. What they try to do is if you can't if you can't come back to the institution that you started for whatever reason, most people wanna go back to where they got started because it's easier to transition in, then we figure out whether they could go to another school. So we're moving towards trying to build that capacity at the department so we could enhance the enrollment management strategies that our institutions are doing. And3577 we have 1 advantage to be3579 able to do that that we didn't have 23581 years ago. 1 of the incentives to get people to come back with some college and no degree is affordability for many of them.
And so being able to strategically reach out to them and tell them, you know, did you know that you can now go to college for free and complete your studies and receive a modest effort? I think we'll get a lot more to come in there. The second part of this problem is less about affordability and more about the transferability of the things that you did once before. And for many of them, they've stopped out for some time. Right? Those who have stopped out within the last 3, 4, maybe even 5 years will have a better chance to transition in because not a whole lot has changed in terms of the academic offerings.
But when you broaden that bandwidth to be more than that, you now run into issues on whether or not you could still get credit for the courses that you did before. Right? And so we don't want people who have some college with no degree to also become victims of some college, no degree, and no longer any credit. And so the mass transfer group3639 coming together is working on that particular aspect because, for us, it's the best way to bring folks, into the system. And then, frankly, we need to examine our policies, not just at the state level, but to work with our institutions to see if are there practices and policies in3655 place that may prevent somebody from coming back in. And I'll give you an example.
Many of these individuals with some college, no degree, they are older and they're looking for a non-traditional, engagement at the institution. And if the only thing available for them when they come back is an offering between eight and 12, right, for one particular course, that's not gonna often work for many people. Others will encounter the fact that it's not so much the classroom provision of learning, but it's the kind of services that are available to help nontraditional people.
So the problem also includes tackling the practices. So we're beginning to move in that direction and we're hoping to, launch a couple of pilots in the next couple of years that focus on that population. So I thank you for bringing that up because I don't think it's talked about enough. And if you think about, little bets and quick wins, that's a massive one that would improve post-secondary outcomes very quickly. So if we could work together on that, I would love to do that as well. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER2 - Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - Wonderful.
LAWRENCE - You know, I've been interested in the dual enrollment programs, which I've heard benefit students attending some of our community colleges by allowing them to easily transfer to our state universities of UMASS. Is this something the department has analyzed, and can you expand on or, how we can expand or strengthen transfer pathways for the students coming into our community colleges? Yeah. And
ORTEGA - Yeah. And I know Secretary Tautwiler3738 can probably speak to the time that he3740 worked in secondary on how those programs have3742 been beneficial. But I'll answer the first part about what the department is doing quickly, which is, yes, we are working to see how we can leverage not just dual enrollment, early college, prior learning assessment type of things as well for secondary students to make sure that they can transfer those into the classroom as well. And not just transfer them into a college or university, but receive some sort of credit towards their degree as well.
Many institutions will give you credit for an assessment or prior learning, but you may not necessarily get credit toward your degree plan. That makes a big difference. So we've got to take on the bigger part of this conversation. All those programs for us are not just seen as creating college knowledge or college awareness. They're seen as affordability because if a student can leave a school with the right number of credits going into any one of our colleges. That increases the time to degree and the cost as well. Mr. Secretary, I'm not sure if you wanna say anything about how you've worked.
TUTWILER - Yeah. So 1 thing that I, want to so one thing that I, want to respectfully first do, mister vice chair, is to distinguish between dual enrollment and early college. A long time ago, when I was in high school, I, did a dual enrollment, in this is in Minnesota a long time ago, program, which essentially allowed me, to sign up and take a college class while still in high school, and I did so, as a senior. It was a good experience.
Early college is a system, a very thoughtful and intentional system that has built-in it's a programmatic experience for students with a very clear beginning, middle, and end with wraparound supports, a strong relationship between the district and high school, and the institution of higher learning. There in fact, there is a designation process that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Ed promulgates to ensure that students are successful.
No disrespect to, my educators and the situation in Minnesota, but it was not early college. It was not that robust, experience that we're, engaging robustly in Massachusetts. The outcomes of early college, in Massachusetts are astounding. Meaning, as I referenced, at a high level, the students who participate, graduate, from high school, at higher rates, than their, counterparts who are not participating in early college.
They matriculate to institutions of higher learning at higher rates, and I think, importantly, as the commissioner, has raised, is a very important piece of our work, they persist, at higher rates. And we do have many, many, data sets that we can share with you, that demonstrate that. The bottom line is this program works, and we are moving at all deliberate speed to expand it.
As I mentioned in my remarks, when it started 7 years ago, there were about 600 or 700 students in it. We intend to get to 10,000, this year. The Early College Joint Committee has articulated a goal of essentially tripling, that number, in the coming years. And so, we are we are deeply committed to expanding this program. Thank you.
COMERFORD - Wonderful. Do we have questions from our colleagues online? Or Okay. DeChanga? Okay. All right. I'll dig in on another question and then we'll wait for questions as they come. Let's talk about how the department has been tracking the impact of this seismic investment for 4 years and also on the private institutions in the Commonwealth. And there are, of course, 2-year privates. Right?
So, you know, how are you seeing in terms of planning going forward, how are you seeing the apportionment of financial aid, that can support the 2-year privates, the 4-year privates? How are you working with the state universities and UMass, to soften, soften any problems? Right? We talk about right minimizing any problems, and maximizing the gains. Are there conversations about, hey, you might have, you know, a huge cohort of students coming in their junior year?
So I'd love to understand that conversation as it's beginning I know it's new. We just did this, but what are you seeing? What are you hearing? And then in terms of transfer and the work on transfer, you know, God bless you for doing that. Yeah. Of transfer and the work on transfer, you know, God bless you for doing this. It's something, you know, that your expertise I said this to the secretary, at the event last week, but the expertise that is, you know, available to the Commonwealth through both of your teams is world-class, so this is very exciting.
Is it universally, easy enough to do? We've heard some concerns. I know you've heard them, about the transfer for STEM fields, for nursing. Unbelievable pipeline that we can get, but as you think as you begin to both roll this out in the free community college and then think about transfer, I'm those are the 2 areas of questions I'd love to talk about or 2 areas of conversation I'd love to have. The impact on the 2 years in privates, and 4 years, and then this any kind of thorny conversations that are coming up in the early transfer conversations.
ORTEGA- Happy to do that. And I we'll start by because it you know, opportunities like this to come in here and answer questions, there are a lot of folks who join in the conversation sitting in here today and, who join online as well. And I think it's very important for them to begin to hear how these building blocks are coming together. Right? And I'll start with, investments in financial aid and the interplay between 2 years, 4 years, public, and private.
Right? The department has numerous programs that serve all our institutions. Our private independent colleges are beneficiaries of many of the same programs as our public institutions. And 1 of the places where you see that the most, we don't talk about it as often as we do Mass Grant Plus, Mass Grant Plus Expansion, Mass Reconnect, Mass Educate, is a MassGrant program, right, which is given to several institutions, including the privates. And over time, we treat those programs as, investments that are, more like entitlements. It's the closest that you have to an entitlement. So if a student is eligible for the program, we make sure that the funds get to them. Right?
And so over time, as more, Pell Grant students go into all our schools, more of those funds get, distributed both to the public and private. Right? Recently, what we've seen in terms of historic investment is funds coming from a very specific fund, the public, education the education and transportation fund, Resources to be used4184 for, our public education. Right? Not exclusively for higher education, but for public education. Those resources of what we would be able to, see these investments in MassRec, Reconnect, Mass Educate, and MassRec4198 Plus as well, which is great. More money into institutions that are supported by the state, where we know many of our students who are from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts attend.
And so the first kind of thing that we've been doing, Senator Commerford, is working with our institutional partners to make sure that we have an understanding of how the department can be better positioned to serve the ecosystem of higher ed. And so we're embarking on something, that we're beginning to put the information together around and redesign the financial aid because we want to address where there might be some limitations and shortfalls.
In the end, the ecosystem serves all our students and learners in Massachusetts. And while we may and I just described this in terms of segments and sectors, our students and our learners are agnostic to what that is. They just want something better. They wanna go to college, and so it's up to us to figure out how we can trace. So I wanna acknowledge that because that is a big part of maybe sort of the whiplash that's being felt as we've been doing these investments.
The second part of this is how we're gonna be able to get to the efficacy part of demonstrating whether or not these programs and investments are leading to the outcomes that we want to see. And I think for us, we're, leveraging what has traditionally been sort of the area in research and planning at the department where we keep track of these things. Right? We have a performance, management system that looks at data in terms of outputs and outcomes, and we need to align that to make sure that we're seeing the things that matter to you, to the public, when they're observing how students are interacting with, our institutions through these affordability project, programs and to see, are they persisting from semester to semester, year to year? Are they increasing their enrollment intestine intensity?
And by that I mean, are they going from part-time, because that was all they could afford, to full-time? Because when a student does those kinds of things, they are more likely to persist and complete. Right? So for us, paying attention to how much of that is happening. We're beginning to do and position4325 ourselves to be able to track it as well. We're also trying to look at areas where there might need to be some improvement as well. For example, are there areas that are, maybe non-credit, non-degree areas that students are also interested in moving into that we need to figure out how they work into our programs? Right?
And I think that's gonna open up the conversation, even broader around the leveraging of resources and, most importantly, what we see as an outcome of success. Right? Because it cannot be limited only to the acquisition of an associate's or a bachelor's degree. Other things help students create that upward mobility and have a better life. And some of them may be programs that, certificates that they can get and go right into the door for some more money. So we're trying to, sort of, tend to many of those things.4378 Now if the question, Senator Kammer, and I suspect this is also embedded in there, how are the institutions responding SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Yeah.
4386 ORTEGA4386 -4386 To4386 the influx of this? Right? You know, the feedback when you infuse this much money into the system, does put a string on the staff that is working to deliver all these programs to our students. And we are extremely, aware of what those are. That was one of the reasons why when we were asked to see if we could provide investments that would help the institutions at least temporarily build some capacity, we said yes because we needed to make sure that they were positioned to help the students in the way that we're all promising.
I often and I started my career as the financial aid personnel in the college, and I often felt like there was always a celebration similar to those images that I put up on the slide deck where people show up and praise the programs that were put in place and listen to students who are being impacted. Then the stage clears, all the debris and chairs are moved away, and left in the room are still the financial aid officers. The admissions officers have to circle back and tend to align with folks.
And so we're trying to figure out how we could transition this pivot because we want to continue to do more in the area of the provision of free college, for students. But we have to make sure that the institutions, grow accordingly.4468 With4468 the number of students that are coming in here. Right? And so it's time to sort of just ask those questions. There's 1 thing that wasn't on the slide, but I think you may or may not be aware. 1 of the things that was also in the most recent budget was, language that called for us to bring together our community college and begin to look at what are the capacity concerns, and some of the infrastructure things that we have to focus on. I think there's a lot4495 that's going to be learned there very quickly that4497 we hope we can bring back to you to leverage going into the new year.
COMERFORD - That's exciting. And maybe we can circle back on the transfer and some of the bumps, but I don't wanna take too much time. I will just talk briefly about FAFSA. I'm completely with the administration on opening up FAFSA and making it universally accessible. 1 of the areas, of course, that caught us and made, at least on the senate side, us not want to, lean in even further, as we did for community college, but not universally, is the capacity. Right? Both are at the K12. Right? These guidance counselors are in the high schools, and then also at the community especially community college level, and state universities as well.
They just they'll need the capacity to be able to support students and families, to do that. I think the return on investment is gonna be massive, as I know you do too, but I would hope that we could see that, you know, the administration perhaps leads on that in H1. I don't know what you're thinking, but it would be extraordinary to see, to see real funding coming for K12, and, the higher ed, system to be able to just really help every student who can. Of course, there can be waivers and reasons why families won't do it, but, access financial aid, to the best ability possible. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Thank you for that. Okay.
SPEAKER1 - Oh, and I think we have Senator Kennedy, online. Thank you. Thank you, Seamus.
SEN KENNEDY - Thank thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask about, enrollment. Enrollments are declining in the 4-year institutions and not talking about community colleges at all. But, I know I represent Lowell, and, UMass Lowell has had a decline4606 in enrollment. And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that it's kind of, that that trend is across the board at the state universities and the other UMass campuses. And so my question would be, do you have a way to forecast how that will look 3 years out, 5 years out? Is it a matter of demographics at all? Or, what do you intend to do to try to turn that around? Because that certainly isn't good, that certainly is a bad trend.
Thank you, kindly for the question. I don't know if you recall in, the commissioner's4643 deck, there was a lovely picture of the board of higher education, and I was tucked away in the back there. And another ex officio role that I play as a UMass trustee. I attend all of those meetings, faithfully and am very aware of, the strategies employed, the scenario at, UMass on all of its campuses. Umass Lowell was the only 1 of the UMass, sort of system that did not meet its enrollment, goals for the current year, and it just missed it by a little bit. The other campuses, Amherst, Dartmouth, Dartmouth, and Boston, all met and, in some cases, exceeded their, enrollment goals, for the year. And I also feel it's important to celebrate UMass Amherst, welcoming its most diverse, class in history. And so, I'll let the commissioner speak to the state use, but I just wanna make that quick clarification on the UMass campuses.
ORTEGA - Senator, this is a really important question, and it's 1 of those things that I think keep every state leader up at night. When you think about the numerous factors that affect enrollment, you know, can we be in a position to forecast? I got my, I've worked in enrollment management for some time before moving into state roles, and 1 of the things that I'll tell you is that there are a lot of ways to anticipate the changes in enrollment, but many of them were post-pandemic. I think 1 of the things that we're realizing now is coming out of the pandemic, there's no real knowing the behavior of students, you know, young people re-engaging with our colleges and universities.
Many of them are now doing, making decisions to do things like, stop out for a year or 2 before enrolling in our colleges and universities. Right? And so that behavior is changing, which makes it a little bit difficult to predict. I will say this, we've been trending downward several times at4770 our 4-year universities, and every time I sit with the institutional leaders now,4774 I will preface this and to any president who's listening or in the room now, I'm4778 sorry for saying this, they tend to be optimistic about their institutions, but there's some instant truth into what they say, and many of them have been saying, we're starting to trend in the right direction, which is very promising. Many of them are beginning to report, and we're getting ready to compile our enrollment report for our board going into the October meeting. So we'll have more details that we're happy to help share back with the committee to get to the members, if that's okay, Senator Comerford
COMERFORD - Absolutely.
ORTEGA - When this is made available. You'll begin to see preliminarily where some of these might be. Right? And so they're moving in the right direction. But I will also say that in the items that help you forecast, there are things that influence students' behavior, you know, and 1 of them is the economy. When the economy does well, people tend to join it and often opt out of postsecondary education. That's probably more true for community colleges, but it's true across the board. Right? And so there are things that help us sort of forecast, but we anticipate that there is going to be, just from pure demographics, fewer students in certain pockets that we've traditionally relied on.
The first is high school students who tend to make up a lot of the enrollment in our traditional 4 year institutions, you know, when you think when you think about it.4850 And there are fewer high school graduates, which is a challenge. Right? This is why you're seeing sort4856 of a bigger push and, representative Gentile brought it up earlier to look at adult learners or people who have some college, no degree to come back to our institutions. Sometimes it may not be as easy for someone to transfer in. I think your transfer question, Senator Comerford, was sort of pointing at that, to transfer back into, any 4 year, particularly, if it's work that they've done somewhere else or maybe in a different sector, right, like a different state.
So I bring that up. But we're trending in the right direction and I think it's positive. These programs like the free college 1 for our 4 years, which, we did not do a very good job last year, and I'll admit this, in marketing and advertising. We didn't release that program until almost the middle of the fall, I believe Yeah. Before we're able to sort of get that4904 up and running. But this year, we're4906 amping up the marketing around this, and so we're gonna begin to see, some changes in the enrollment behaviors. And will it be as large as the increases that I described earlier, for mass reconnect, like 45%, probably not, but if we start moving in the right direction, which is up, I think that's gonna be positive. But it's something that we're monitoring very closely, and if we can find ways that I mentioned earlier to think about state-level, interventions that would help enhance the enrollment strategies of of our institutions, we've got to be open to that as well. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER5 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - You're welcome. Thanks, Senator Kennedy. Do you have a question?
LAWRENCE - I did. I want to thank you, madam chair. I want to ask, what can we do to further enable our community4954 college students to be able to successfully transfer to our state universities or UMASS? You know, there seem to be,4962 you know, obstacles currently. What can we do to really and that would help enrollment at those institutions as well, of course.
ORTEGA - Some of the things that are happening already naturally, we're seeing are making significant, improvements. Right? There's a strategy, where you have kind of a, it's joint admissions type of program where you're admitted both at a two-year and a four-year. And so you simultaneously know what are the correct classes that I need to take to transfer across the institution when I do decide to move into the four year, work phenomenally well. Right? There's a lot of effort to put one of those together. They tend to be concentrated in certain programs that are tied to high-need or in-demand professions. There are a lot of those that happen in the education field. You see teacher preparation programs that do this well.
We've been working with our sister agency in the early education space, where we're doing this to make sure that we get more early education providers into two years and then if they want to, to continue to go into the four years. So that's one thing that we certainly can begin to do. There are other things that states are doing around the country that we're beginning to have conversations with, several folks. Right? Some efforts do direct admissions. Several folks. Right? Some efforts do direct admissions, for example, into the universities as well, where you take a lot of the thinking and planning for students and you admit them directly from secondary school, for example, into a college or university.
And then you can also make sure that there are articulation agreements between those two schools. Right? A lot of this comes down to the work that the institutions and the faculty have to do with each other and many of them are doing it. But I think there's still more work to be done in that area. There are a lot of constraints that I think that we're gonna need to start talking through, and in some ways, Senator Commerford is the same variation of the question that you were asking. Right? What are some of the things that don't allow the conversation to progress? Right? There is a need to make sure that everyone recognizes that an intro course in one area should also be an acceptable intro course in another area.5093 Right? You see it happening a lot5095 with, for example, nursing courses.
Like, a lot of the nursing courses share similar competencies. And so if you take5103 this course somewhere else, you know, it's similar to the course that you we need to do more of that.5107 We need to do a better job of aligning the competencies. That's some of the things that the department has done well over the past several years with mass transfer, but you have to constantly revisit them because they change pretty periodically. So some of these things require those larger conversations as well. And so, you know, we're beginning to move the needle, and I think the mandate to put together the mass transfer group to come together is gonna be helpful.
I think, you know, when we put that group together if we could get them to put some recommendations that are shared both to us, the Department, to see if there are things that we could do, at the agency that would help make these processes more seamless. And then the other is, that some of these things may require for us to look at potentially working together with the legislature to address them as well. Right? So put those on the table as what we hope to be outcomes, but we've got to get that one right. Transferring across our various institutions to work like a system is I know something that a lot of our colleges and universities want, and so I think we just gotta figure out how to deliver it.
COMERFORD - Okay. Absolutely. And we'd love to know the pain points too. True. Because we'll hear some of them, especially from the four-year institutions. The concerns about the very highly technical, degrees at the four years. And I just really want us to understand in the legislature how to be the best allies, to the administration as you try to chart those pathways. Is there more capacity in the community colleges? Is there some sort of onboarding in the four years?
I know, you'll be the experts here, but it'll be important for us to, as you say, to try to get that right. I love acting as a system. Right? Can you it'll be a beautiful day. Let's talk blue sky about and the program's success. So I think it's wonderful that it's at the state universities. It's one of my favorite programs at the community colleges. You both embraced this big, notion that there it's to educate a student is so much more complex than tuition fees and book supplies, and the administration5233 said that again and again, and that is, I think really to be commended. In your best possible world, you know, where would you see this program going, you know, in the next iteration, in the next fiscal year budget?
What are some of the conversations you're having? So for example, what what we hear is, you know, give us some unrestricted money, and we'll set up a childcare center. Give us some unrestricted money, we'll run a shuttle in places where public transportation is terrible, like where I live. You know, these are all the barriers that you've already articulated, and then the other is, of course, 14,000,000 may seem like a lot of money, but it's just not enough money, to do this well. Again, I know we're competing for every dollar in a fiscally constrained reality for the general budget, but I'd love to understand, you know, where you want to lean in. Would you like me to just please?
ORTEGA - Yeah. So one of the areas that we probably want to begin with is to see what lessons have been learned by the community college Success Program, in the past several years. And they've been working, you know, with external, partners as well to make sure that they think about how to evaluate the effectiveness rate. You do have 15 colleges and community colleges participating in the program. Right? And so understanding the variation and why it's happening is gonna be important.
Because I think there are things that we need to zone in on on their effectiveness and figure out how we can scale those up across the multiple programs. I recognize also the needs of the two years may differ from the four year, but there are some overlapping needs that those students moving across the system have. Right? And I think we need to work to identify what they are. The nice thing is the success thing, the success concern has been taken on by numerous states. I don't want to say too much about the agenda because it's still being curated for the first meeting, but we plan to bring in some of the big programs that have been around the country that have been doing well in the successful effort. Great.
One of the biggest ones is in New York. The ASAP program has just yielded a tremendous impact on outcomes. Right? We wanna learn from, chancellor, John King, and his team to speak to the group and let us know what some of the things that they're embracing because, they've they're learning from their community college system and applying it to their four-year system, and I think that's fantastic. Georgia State has done some amazing things at their institutions as well around success.
And so the idea here is to take all the findings that are already out there. This is what's great we don't have to reinvent the wheel if things are already working and5399 begin to build them in. And then to figure out, does that mean that we need to figure out a way to leverage more resources for it? Right? How do we leverage financial aid? How do we take the investments that are already in there to yield the outcomes? And so that's what we're looking, to do in terms of understanding the things that are already coming up as being important. Right?
Mentorship and advising are big things. Peer-to-peer type of efforts tend to be as effective as faculty advising, areas. And then in many ways, you know, as you think about several students coming into our institutions now, there are a lot of things around mental health that we haven't gotten right for a while that we need to make sure that we begin to address because, a, effectively, if students are affected in ways that they can engage in the learning, right, and a, effectively, it doesn't have to just be mental health, but there's well-being aspects, things that they're doing in terms of hunger and food insecurities that are affecting this as well. How do you address those?
Some of these solutions are going to be beyond the scope of what the education budget or the higher education budget is. And so one of the things that I want to make sure we don't lose sight of is it's gonna take multiple agencies to address some of the challenges that we have Agree. At our institution. And so how do we make sure that those individuals who might be having the same conversation we are, in smaller pockets, are brought into the fold? Because housing security is not a thing that we could address with the higher education budget that we have at the moment. Right? It's going to be something that we're going to have to look to other agencies to begin to address.
COMERFORD - Agree. Right. So caseworkers on campuses can open up Raft or can help with food stamps or, SNAP or HIP applications, things like to maximize the reach of all of the government programs on the campus. I think that's great. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER4 - Excited about the work.
SPEAKER1 - It's great. Can I ask another 1?
SPEAKER4 - Go
SPEAKER1 - ahead. I think I'm narrowing it on my end.
COMERFORD - Let's talk about non-degree, non-non-credit courses. So I love them. I see a real tie between the workforce skills cabinet secretary that I know you're on with secretary Jones. Right? Secretary Howe. It's like quite a trio. Secretary Walsh now. Right? So talk to me about, you know, how do we what 1 of the things I always hear, just you should know as someone who cares about public higher education or higher education, you know, oh, you're never gonna crack it. You're never gonna, you know, get the workforce to the workforce training to match the needs of the Commonwealth.
I hear a lot of naysaying all the time. And I said, no. No. No. Not this administration. We've got a workforce skills cabinet, and we commit, you know, a resurgence of funding in higher ed. And we wanna nail this. And we wanna be able to have a, you know, secretary Howe go out there and recruit a business, and have some way of communicating, hey, that's coming to Deerfield, and they need welders, or they need microchip processors, and GCC, can you stand something up? Right?
Like that kind of real churn, and those are noncredit courses, and I'm devoted to something called the Education Training Fund which was an ARPA-funded program that is not funded in this current, budget. But that's not the only noncredit, or degree, nondegree. I'm mixing up my forgive me. You know what I'm talking about. The non-degree courses, right, the certificate courses. Talk to me about the future of those at all of the institutions, and how how we can turn away those naysayers who say, nope. We're not gonna be able to nail bringing in the employers, training our people, getting them the high paying jobs, through these non-degree courses. Like, what's the what's the future of these in the Commonwealth?
ORTEGA - Yeah. No problem. So I do want to, as I answer this question, sort of borrow from something that I observed from a few key individuals that we highlighted on the free college community college, which is to be an unapologetic advocate for why something needs to happen to make it happen. When we think about nondegree, you know, it opens up the conversation to where skills-based approaches to post-secondary learning for our students must be embraced in this century for our colleges and universities. Otherwise, we're not gonna make the kind of headway that we need to make in terms of making sure that all learners have some sort of post-secondary pathway that works for them based on where they5681 are at that moment. Right?
To me, this is5683 a very important fundamental question when you think of what American higher education, American higher education needs to be now. We spent a lot of time tackling the idea of financial aid. Right? If you think about the mid Pell Grants, the inventions of those things, are these, eras or spells that you could imagine have occurred over time in higher education? We moved into a universal access kind of commitment. Right? Coming out of the sixties, making sure5713 that our colleges and universities work for5715 everybody.
And now we're taking on questions of success and value even embedded in there. But we now have to move into an area where we rethink what is the provision of learning and what are the needs. Right? And so we feel, like, the department and the board as well at the recent retreat talked about this. What are we going to do for nondegree, noncredit skills pathways? Can we work with our institutions to figure out, how we could invest in pilot programs, for example,5745 that yield more outcomes and findings on how relevant these are to the workforce?
I wouldn't advocate, Senator Comerford for us to invest in every sort of, certificate program that's out there. If it's not going to yield the outcome that it has to yield in terms of putting students into a workforce learning, earning a meaningful wage. But to us, those are gonna be important conversations to be able to have. How might we leverage financial aid to pay for some of these. Cases that it's not available? I think that's a conversation that we truly need to have. There was a report that was released. Important. There was a report that was released a couple of years ago that introduced some very important outcomes associated with certificates, non-degree, or other credentials5791 that you can non-degrees, or other credentials that you can bundle on top of an associate's or, a bachelor's degree.5799
They said that many students who are going through receiving degrees in areas that someone has said, well, you don't have a high earning potential if you earn that particular degree. I'm not gonna call them out here, but there's a lot of conversations out there. And then they found that individuals who are going on those pathways, bundling it out with a certificate or credential were more likely to be employed earning the kind of wage that they had if they did it. And5826 for us, that's an important finding about why these areas are important. And I'll end with this5832 and, turn it over to secretary Tuckweiler if he'd like to add some comments. When we think about what happens to the number of students that don't persist to complete, that's a big share of students who enroll in our colleges and universities.
The question to us becomes, did we equip those students with anything that might have some currency when they enter5853 and go back into, whatever world that they're going back into? Right? And for5859 many of them, it's work. Can they go back and earn a livable wage? If we provide them with things that over time can be bundled, like certificates, many of them could go out there, earn a livable wage, and then when they're ready, opt back into the system and take advantage of our programs. They play an important role. And I think as someone in my role, I cannot shy away from talking about their importance, in higher education because we need to move in that direction.
TUTWILER - Madam chair, I'll invite, Bob LePage from my team just to, offer his perspective on this. But, you did lift the skills cabinet, which, I participate in, which is a brilliant team. And I'm not talking about myself, but, a brilliant Go ahead. A brilliant team because here you have an individual whose area of expertise, if I can humbly say so, is in curriculum and instruction, but I'm sitting next to, someone who leads in health and human services, someone who's got deep expertise in, labor, and someone who's got deep, expertise in the economic development space.
And we're putting our minds together to think about what the path forward is, and it shows up in really robust ways. And 1 way that I'll lift is, the capital skills grant program, which does support we talked about, the naysayers who say, oh, there's no way that, you know, you're gonna be able to sort of make this real. Well, when you think about, how through this sort of partnership we've created a pathway to provide the equipment, the facilities on college campuses that allow for, students to be trained and be ready to go out and do this work. I have those naysayers who just sort of look at that, and maybe they'll think they'll think differently. Bob, do you wanna comment on this?
BOB LEPAGE - MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION - I've skipped 2 or 3, common-level stuff, how does common law handle those things now because they bridge between economic development, and labor, why do they sit in that space? 1, it's usually because they don't meet the federal requirements to be eligible for financial aid. And sometimes that's program design. As the commissioner lot of that could be potentially scaled or better informed to point to a collaboration that's happening in the community colleges around manufacturing.
It was funded through the group called MassBridge which is looking to create a credential that would be offered at all community colleges that would be essentially a short stack of courses with industry credentials that would be potentially palatable. I know the team, commissioner's team is thinking about those strategies. Historically, the funding for short-form training programs comes through the Department of Labor, the secretary general, and then it comes through Commonwealth Corp.
Most of it. There are other little pockets that you have to be a magician to follow where they all are because they go from budget to budget. To be able to develop something for the valley that could then be adopted by Springfield Tech as a wide strategy. So those brands move on a pretty continuous basis. The other part of the component that you mentioned was 2 parts. As you remember, as we came out of, the COVID challenge, we wanted to be able to ensure that we could get people who were in some of the occupations that really kind of evaporated during that period, the opportunity to be trained.
So we took 2 strategies on 1, which was, as you mentioned, $15,000,000 that was invested in our community colleges, as you know, some of our community colleges have provided skilled trades, some haven't. There are challenges in the availability of capacity for equipment and technology. So those grants are called CTI grants also through Commonwealth Park that are funding vocational schools that are providing specific skilled trade, carbon grease, some welding, and to have it. Those skilled trades in a similar6218 model free you eligible applicants based on income levels of our Shoals. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Exceedingly helpful.
ORTEGA - On the question of naysayers, I think this is kind of an important thing to think about in higher ed because, for us, it's kind of a fundamental question for how we choose to pursue our work. And that is if you look back at every turn of the century, there's always been a naysayer in a particular area. And if we overcome that negativity, we make progress in higher education. When I think about Massachusetts, it's the birthplace of higher education.
It was a time when it was only for men, only for men looking to pursue, the priesthood. And then over time, we decided agriculture matters and we've got to make our institutions available for folks, who traditionally have not been represented. Then that gave birth to the land grant institutions. Now we've got Amherst who's making tremendous strides. There was a time when people were naysayers in community colleges saying there's no role for a junior college in the spectrum of 4 years. And now they're very much embedded into the fabric. I think as we move into this century and we think about what the things that we're going to say, we've got to take on those naysayers and just push back because we've got to keep higher ed progressing. And that question to us is so important being in a place like Massachusetts. Right? And to those naysayers, I would say, bring it. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Alright. I think those are 2 good words to end on.
SPEAKER2 - Very good.
COMERFORD - Mister question. Okay. Secretary, you've stayed longer. I know thank you for your generosity. Commissioner, thank you. Thanks to both of your teams. I'm sure there'll be a follow-up. It'll we'll bring it because we're not done. That's right. So, with that, I'm gonna gavel us out. Thank you so much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Thank you. Appreciate it.
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