By Melanie Mitcheson | Observer Contributor
At Mount Wachusett Community College’s biweekly info sessions, Associate Vice President of Enrollment Marcia Rosbury-Henne put it simply: “We just call it free college.”
She’s referring to two recent pieces of Massachusetts legislation that have made community college tuition-free: MassReconnect, passed in fall 2023, which applies to students over 25 without a bachelor’s degree, and MassEducate, passed in spring 2024, which covers all Massachusetts residents. These programs are turning skeptics into students, leading to an increase in enrollment and impacting the middle-income families ineligible for federal aid, as well as college-bound youth, and even their newly college-bound parents.