On January 29, 2025, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) voted to approve four strategic priorities that will guide the BHE and the Department of Higher Education’s (DHE) work in the years ahead. These priorities are designed to support BHE’s equity goal: to significantly raise the enrollment, attainment and long-term success outcomes among under-represented student populations.
The BHE strategic priorities synthesize, build upon, and focus a series of BHE initiatives and Departmental reports and recommendations that inform DHE’s work. Organizing BHE and DHE work into four strategic priorities allows the Department to focus its efforts on measured success. The four strategic priorities were adopted in a Board motion. These priorities include:
Supporting and advancing student access and success through well-designed, sufficiently funded, clear and consistent financial aid and success program funding
This priority aims to give students the support they need to get both to and through college, building on Massachusetts’ recent investments in college access and student success. The BHE and DHE will implement well-designed, consistently funded financial aid programs, while advancing work to support student success and increase college completion rates.
Increasing the economic mobility benefits of postsecondary participation
This priority is about increasing students’ financial outcomes post higher education through targeted policies and programs that open doors to economic advancement across Massachusetts.
Improving alignment between public good outcomes and postsecondary higher education opportunities
This priority seeks to build on and align higher education institutions’ contributions to the well-being of society that address broad community needs.
Facilitating and fostering high-impact innovation throughout the public higher education system
Innovation, including technology, should be used to further the Board’s other priorities. DHE will explore innovative approaches that can meet students’ evolving needs and lift barriers to higher education access and success.
The Board vote on strategic priorities also endorsed frameworks for advancing the economic mobility and innovation priorities. These frameworks include guiding principles, along with five-year and 18-month goals.
The Board charged the Commissioner to align and prioritize the work of the Department, as well as necessary resources, to advance these strategic priorities effectively, in service to the overarching equity goal. The BHE, in turn, committed to establishing one or more Board task forces to work on each of the priorities, allowing BHE to develop frameworks as needed and measure progress toward goals. With the approval of these strategic priorities, the BHE is setting a bold vision for the Massachusetts public higher education system—one that prioritizes financial aid and student success, promotes innovation, fosters economic mobility for all students, and amplifies higher education’s impact on the public good.
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