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!
Free College, Plain and Simple.
We are excited to announce our upcoming campaign for tuition-free college instead of less comprehensive “last-dollar” grant programs. So what exactly is a last-dollar program? A last-dollar program offers grants to students based on how much financial aid they need, so they only pay as much as they can. While this would make college considerably more affordable for families, it is not the simple tuition-free college we need and deserve.
Tuition-free college is better as a matter of principle, which also makes it more sustainable in the long run: by establishing free college as a right for all students regardless of wealth, it encourages citizens of all income levels to pay into it since they all benefit from it being free. On the other hand, a “last-dollar” program only provides aid to those who need it. In turn, it alienates middle and upper class families who are stuck with exorbitant tuition costs just because they can afford it.
Tuition-free college’s simplicity also makes it much more convenient for everyone involved: since tuition is free for all, we can waste less money on the financial aid and bureaucracy needed to calculate how much help students need. The tuition-free college program we support, the Debt-Free Future Act (DFF), would also provide aid for extra expenses such as housing, supplies and groceries, which can mean the difference between attending and not attending for many lower-income students.
Since Massachusetts can clearly afford tuition-free college as one of the nation’s wealthiest states, and since it needs tens of thousands more college-educated workers, the answer is clear: let’s pass tuition-free college with the Debt-Free Future Act!
PHENOM’s “Student Voices, Policy Choices” Forum a Success!
On Tuesday, September 17th, PHENOM and UMass Amherst’s Student Government Association hosted the event “Student Voices, Policy Choices” with progressive legislators Sen. James Eldridge, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Rep. Dan Sena, and Rep. Natalie Higgins.
These passionate advocates for higher education reform discussed the importance of the Debt-Free Future Act, ending the student debt crisis, what to learn from the recent victory of free community college, and how to ensure a tuition-free college program would benefit all levels of our public higher education system, not only the largest and richest.
PHENOM’s “Student Voices, Policy Choices” Forum (Credit: Rose DeBenedictis)
Teach at a Community College? Let Us Know About Your Experience!
While the passage of tuition-free college has been a major victory for everyone in the Commonwealth, it has brought its own host of challenges: namely, how do we ensure our community colleges get the funding they need to accommodate such huge increases in demand?
With community colleges now tuition-free, demand is exploding. According to Governor Healey, the Commonwealth has seen an impressive enrollment of 10,000 students in our community colleges for the Fall 2024 semester. What’s more, the government expects enrollment to increase to 45,000 within the next year. This is particularly exciting since 10,000 is double the number of students who even qualified for the earlier program known as MassReconnect, intended only for adults 25 and over.
But since MassReconnect led to “significant strain” on Massachusetts’ community colleges with its modest improvements, it begs the question: how unprepared are our community colleges to handle the tidal wave of newly-enrolled students taking advantage of this historic opportunity?
If you or a friend working in Massachusetts’ community colleges would like to discuss, please feel free to contact us at Henry@phenomonline.org.
In Other News
Exorbitant Prices Make Graduate Degrees Even Riskier
A Georgetown study has found that, despite their enduring benefits in the job market, graduate degrees are becoming more and more risky because of how expensive they have become. According to the researchers, between 2000 and 2020, median tuition costs rose by a whopping 233 percent from $3000 to $10,000. Even worse, median student debt rose to $50,000 by 2020.
A key factor in this? Extremely lenient student borrowing policies that have coaxed students into taking on debt they could never afford. Once Congress passed reforms in 2006 drastically raising limits on how much graduate students could borrow, it actually led to colleges raising tuition as an excuse. In turn, according to advocates, the specter of student loan debt these changes have enabled is only discouraging students from applying to graduate schools.
What Role Will Colleges Play In Hot-Button Issues Going Forward?
Since the last year of heated campus debates concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict and universities’ investments, Harvard University is among a growing number of universities choosing to refrain from offering opinions altogether. It promises to be an interesting change, as administrations have seen any attempt at a measured response will only trigger backlash from one side or the other.
The Harvard policy of avoiding political commentary casts a wide net, covering “all University administrators and governing board members, as well as deans, department chairs, and faculty councils”.
An enduring question remains: given the place of higher education in our modern world – as seen with these universities’ extensive ties to organizations and companies with heavy involvement in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict – will it even be possible for institutions to remain meaningfully neutral? Or will they handle scrutiny of their administration’s involvement constructively while doing a better job to protect students’ freedom of expression?