Welcome back to The PHENOM Update, our official monthly newsletter where we keep you updated on recent goings on in our campaigns and around the higher ed world!
Come to MA State House 7/18 to support better financial aid and tuition-free college!
Are you frustrated with the federal government’s cuts to higher education? Do you want to help improve financial aid access in Massachusetts and even fight for tuition-free college? Do you also live in or around Boston?
Then join PHENOM at the Massachusetts State House on July 18th, 1-5 PM at room A-2 in support of two revolutionary bills that would make college more affordable for everyone in Massachusetts!
All you have to do is sign up to speak here. Or, if you can’t voice your support for these bills in person, then send in written testimony through here! Still need more information about the bills and how you can make a difference? Then use this link for an info session this Wednesday or read more below!
Intro
Two bills PHENOM is fighting for, the Debt-Free Future Act (HD.1473/SD.300) and the Financial Aid Reform Act (SD.2477/HD.2461), are set to be considered at a hearing on July 18th, this Friday, between 1-5 PM. While these are both quite different bills, each would make affording college much, much easier for everyone in the Commonwealth.
The Debt-Free Future Act is simple yet revolutionary: it would enshrine all public colleges as tuition-free for all Massachusetts citizens and force the state to fund it through a combination of existing federal and state funding.
The Financial Aid Reform Act, meanwhile, is focused on a massive overhaul of Massachusetts’ current financial aid system. This bill aims to help students hear about all of the available financial aid opportunities as well as get aid in a timely manner through improvements like a single website, an appeals process, and expanded advertising.
Help us defend the right to higher education!
By showing out in full force this Friday, we can send a clear message to our legislators that an affordable college education is crucial to our economy and to our democracy. The Trump administration’ s cruel funding cuts, while a crisis, are also a major opportunity for Massachusetts to use our vast wealth to fund our own free college system and show the rest of America how to fight back.
It’s official: PHENOM wins $5 million in financial aid for students across MA!
Left to right: volunteer Sophia Butosova and PHENOM student organizer Ruo Wu at April 10th’s Advocacy Day (Credit: Tim Fortin)
After months of scheduling meetings with legislators, planning an advocacy day that brought together students from across the Commonwealth, and urging dozens upon dozens of Beacon Hill legislators to increase financial aid funding, all the hard work has finally paid off: the Massachusetts State Legislature has approved an increase of $5 million to the Commonwealth’s financial aid budget!
While it is not the $20 million PHENOM and our volunteers and legislative allies had tirelessly advocated for, it is millions of dollars that will make life even a little easier for students across Massachusetts staring down a very uncertain future for higher education.
PHENOM urged lawmakers to add $20 million to the Commonwealth’s financial aid budget because experts said that amount was crucial for preventing students from dropping out. Amid massive federal cuts to education funding, it was clear that PHENOM would have to fight tooth and nail to win any funding increases: not only is the Trump administration dismantling the Department of Education, they are also withholding billions in K-12 funding just because.
At a time when our prized institutions of higher education are under attack like never before, this victory is proof of how much is possible when everyday people come together and demand a government that works for them.
Under a new Republican bill, Massachusetts’ free college programs will end unless Massachusetts policymakers act.
The Republicans’ freshly-passed “Big, Beautiful Bill” is creating major disruptions to everyday Americans’ lives: from cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, to the end of Grad PLUS loans, in exchange for trillions in tax cuts to the nation’s wealthiest citizens.
The bill also will put an end to Massachusetts’ promising free college programs such as MassEducate, the Commonwealth’s celebrated free community college program created just last July. In addition to free community college, it would end the free college programs just getting started at UMass and at state universities such as Worcester State and MassArt.
How is this happening? A statute in the bill bans states from using Pell grants to fund free college programs. Unfortunately, this is exactly how Massachusetts free college programs operate.
Fortunately, Massachusetts has several possible ways to fight back against this law and, in fact, protect its new free college programs! Read more in our memo here!
In other news:
Gov. Healey blasts Trump administration for withholding $108M from Massachusetts
In early July, Governor Healey reported that as much as $108 million in the form of grants was not delivered to the state of Massachusetts, directly impacting thousands of children and their families. Trump has illegally held hostage the massive amount of funds already appropriated by Congress as part of his “programmatic review of education funding”.
Programs in dozens of school districts across the Commonwealth are going to lose funding. Students are going to lose valuable support from their educators, especially students belonging to the most disadvantaged communities.
This move could have long-term repercussions for Massachusetts’ education system and, in turn, on the Commonwealth’s economy, health and political climate. Proper funding to education is a powerful commitment to economic opportunity and social equity, and yet another attack from President Trump shows his outright disdain for educators and their communities.
How one Ohio initiative is boosting degree attainment for community college students
Offering intensive advising and career support to low-income students has led to higher degree attainment rates and higher average earnings after graduation. This particular program, launched in 2014, and was able to support first-generation students, parents, and other students facing barriers to their success in college.
A combination of monthly meetings with advisors, tutoring services, and mandated career activity work all contribute to higher levels of success. The ASAP model, first launched by CUNY, has demonstrated massive benefits on both four-year university students and community colleges. Vouchers for textbooks tuition, and a $50 gas and grocery bonus were also included as part of the program.
Programs like these help bolster the value and echo the importance of supporting and funding free, accessible community colleges across the country. Sometimes, supporting economic mobility is as easy as giving people the opportunity by giving them the services they need. Textbooks and grocery costs simply do not have to further burden vulnerable student groups.
Are you a student loan borrower? Here’s how the Big Beautiful Bill Act could affect you.
President Trump and Republicans’ freshly-passed “Big, Beautiful Bill” has significantly upended America’s student loan system.
The legislation not only eliminates Grad PLUS loans and restricts Parent PLUS loans, it also replaces a variety of income-based loan repayment programs with just one stricter program, restricts how much debt students can take on, and eliminates the option to postpone payments during times of economic hardship, such as unemployment.
The bill restricts Parent PLUS loans to $20,000 per year with a total maximum of $65,000. Meanwhile, the bill ended the Grad PLUS loan program for good, forcing students to turn to Direct Unsubsidized Loans.
For graduate students taking on unsubsidized loans, the limits vary based on the kind of program. For professional graduate students (i.e., in law or medicine), the yearly limit will be $50,000 and the all-time limit will be $200,000. For other graduate students, the yearly loan limit will be $20,500 while the all-time limit will be $100,000.
What is the reasoning behind these decisions? On the one hand, there is a good reason to restrict student loan programs like Grad PLUS and Parent PLUS: these programs have given colleges an excuse to dramatically raise prices instead of just making their programs more affordables. In the process, students and their families get saddled with insurmountable debt. So restricting or cutting these programs would force colleges to stop relying on debt and just reduce prices, right?
Not so fast. This would be the case if the government required these caps on student loans to be combined with massive increases in funding to make our colleges more affordable or even free. Actually, the government would also have to highly restrict private student loans for this to work.
This is because, while these loan programs have undoubtedly fuelled the student debt crisis, the upside was they were at least federal programs that had more protections for students than private loans. Now, without colleges becoming more affordable, students will have no choice but to turn to even riskier private loans.
In addition, student loan borrowers can no longer get a pause (“deferment”) on paying their loans in times of economic hardship, which previously you could get for up to three years. Without additional reforms, these policies seem to prevent millions of bright, ambitious students from pursuing their dreams of a professional career while forcing millions of others to rely on highly shady, predatory private loans.