Community college is now free for Mass. residents 25 and older. Millions qualify

USA ONE@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 651 points –
Community college is now free for Mass. residents 25 and older. Millions qualify
wbur.org
35

You are viewing a single comment

Why 25 and older? Why not give it for free to everyone who wants it?

Be like me where my parents made too much but wouldn't support me so I had to wait until 25 to get my AA because of the bulkshit fafsa income rules.

12 more...

Because it's actually easier to get financial aid if you're under 25.

Almost everything gets cut off at 25.

Including Pell Grants which is absolutely free federal funding for schools, which tends to pay almost entirely for a community college degree, with plenty left over. This year, for instance the maximum is a little over $6,800.

The average cost of a community college tuition, fees, etc. is aorund $3,000 - $4,500 this year, depending on how you slice the data.

Kinda. I still got Pell grants into my 30s. Only reason they stopped for me is because I capped out.

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.

probably the only way banking lobbyists would allow it to pass, they still need the most vulnerable chunk of the age groups going to college, and the lion's share of them.

15 more...