Interim Commissioner Santos

José Luis Santos, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized higher education executive, scholar, and advocate for educational opportunity whose career spans work in public service, institution of higher education academic leadership, policy development, and innovation. He joined the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) in March 2023 as Senior Deputy Commissioner and Special Advisor to the Commissioner, a role in which he has carried out the functions of Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer, while also serving as Interim Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA). As the Commissioner’s principal deputy and senior strategic advisor, he has provided leadership across DHE’s policy, operational, financial, and external functions.

Under Commissioner Noe Ortega’s leadership, Dr. Santos has served as the senior executive charged with implementing the Commonwealth’s historic financial aid expansion across DHE and the public higher education system. His portfolio has included MassReconnect, MASS Grant Plus, MASS Grant Plus Expansion, and MassEducate. For MassReconnect – Governor Maura Healey’s landmark program making community college tuition- and fee-free for eligible students aged 25 and older who had not previously earned a college degree – Dr. Santos directed agency execution, institutional coordination, the public launch, and statewide communications campaign. He subsequently directed implementation of the expansion of MASS Grant Plus, which increased assistance for low-income students and reduced out-of-pocket tuition and fee costs for middle-income students, and MassEducate, which expanded tuition- and fee-free community college to eligible students of all ages who had not previously earned a bachelor’s degree. Under the Healey-Driscoll Administration, Massachusetts more than doubled state financial aid spending to more than $400 million and increased community college enrollment by more than 38%.

Dr. Santos has also helped shape and advance DHE’s innovation agenda. He led the development and launch of the Massachusetts Higher Education Innovation Hub, including leading a national search for its inaugural chief innovation officer and team. Dr. Santos has also played a central role in building DHE’s leadership capacity. He led the recruitment and formation of the Commissioner’s executive team and helped build out the Commissioner’s Office and external relations functions, strengthening the agency’s executive infrastructure and its capacity to advance an ambitious statewide higher education agenda.

Dr. Santos serves on the ASU+GSV Higher Education Insights Board, bringing a Massachusetts state-system perspective to national conversations about how innovation can responsibly expand opportunity, improve outcomes, strengthen workforce alignment, and advance higher education’s public mission.

Before entering Massachusetts public service, Dr. Santos built a distinctive career spanning higher education policy, research, advocacy, and technology-enabled innovation. As a senior leader at The Education Trust in Washington, D.C., he led its national higher education portfolio and advanced educational opportunity through work with the White House, Congress, federal agencies, and state and national partners on college access, affordability, completion, and accountability. He later served as an executive at a global education technology organization, developing flexible, student-centered programs designed to meet learners where they are.

Dr. Santos also brings extensive experience as a scholar and educator. He was an associate professor in graduate programs in learning technologies and organizational leadership at Pepperdine University and a tenure-track assistant professor at UCLA, where he was affiliated with the Higher Education Research Institute and the Chicano Studies Research Center. At the University of Arizona, he held leadership and research roles in institutional equity and institutional research and founded the Latina/o Policy Research Initiative. His scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals, and his research on affirmative action was cited in an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as a fellow with Complete College America.

Dr. Santos serves ex officio on the board of Commonwealth Corporation, Massachusetts’ quasi-public workforce development agency.

The son of migrant farmworkers who immigrated to the United States from México, Dr. Santos is a first-generation college graduate and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He enlisted at age 17 and began his higher education journey while on active duty, taking general education courses at a local community college. He later competed for and was selected as one of only a handful of Marines, alongside more than 400 sailors, for the Navy’s rigorous, yearlong Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection and Training (BOOST) program. After completing BOOST, he earned a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship that enabled him to attend college full-time and prepare to become a Marine Corps commissioned officer.

Dr. Santos financed his undergraduate education through a combination of the GI Bill, Pell Grants, federal work-study, loans, and his NROTC scholarship. His path from enlisted Marine and active-duty community college student to first-generation college graduate and higher education scholar gives him a deeply personal understanding of how well-designed programs, financial aid, and flexible pathways can recognize talent and create opportunity for learners at different stages of their lives and careers.

Dr. Santos served honorably as a noncommissioned officer, including during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Fiery Vigil, the humanitarian response to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Arizona, and completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education Economics and Finance Policy with training in econometrics and research methodology.

Dr. Santos and his wife of more than 35 years have made their home and put down roots in Waltham, where they are active members of the community. They enjoy spending time with family, theater, concerts, local trails, exploring New England, and volunteering. They are the proud parents of two adult children.