Despite a broad potential scope, “MassReconnect” program is expected to start out small, helping around 8,000 students in its first year. But Healey presented it as part of her administration’s broader reinvestment in public higher education, after years of flat or declining state support.
There is a bill in the works called the CHERISH Act in Massachusetts that would allow all residents to graduate community college debt-free (note not actually free just support people enough they don’t go into debt).
Mass Reconnect (the program in the article) was created from 20 million dollars taken from the new Mass millionaires’ tax. CHERISH is estimated to cost about 500 million (a great investment but definitely a scale of magnitude larger)
I think what’s crazy about CHERISH is that it would raise state investment in each student just to the level seen in 2001. Crazy how much even states like Mass have cut education funding in the last 20 years.