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August 14, 2024—Commissioner of Higher Education Noe Ortega addressed fellow state higher education leaders at the August 2024 convening of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO). The annual policy conference highlights issues critical to strengthening state systems of public higher education across the country.
Commissioner Ortega joined other experts to discuss the value of a college education, socio-economic upward mobility, and several consumer protection initiatives, including protecting students from precipitous closures and from institutions that deliver a high cost and low-quality education experience. He drew on Massachusetts’ strength in higher education access and quality to share views on three panel discussions:
Commissioner Ortega highlighted the Commonwealth’s historic new investments in state financial aid programs, including MassReconnect, MassEducate and MASSGrant Plus. Massachusetts now offers residents free tuition and fees at community colleges regardless of age or income level, and free tuition and fees at all of its public four-year universities for low-income students. And Massachusetts has reduced costs at four-year public universities for middle-income students as well.
Commissioner Ortega also highlighted Massachusetts’ landmark Financial Assessment and Risk Monitoring (FARM) law, a model that has received national interest from counterparts looking to protect students from sudden college closures. The FARM law allows the state to play a consumer protection role when colleges close or merge, in part through monitoring finances and requiring contingency plans so that students can transfer with minimal loss of time and credits. The process is meant to avoid precipitous closures and ensure multiple options for students when a closure does occur amid a shifting higher education landscape.
“Learning from the experiences of colleagues nationally is essential to our work in Massachusetts, and we are also among the leading states in areas like free community college and increases in state financial aid, as well as consumer protection,” said Ortega. “As Massachusetts builds on last year’s historic financial aid investments, we have momentum toward creating an equitable system of higher education that can ensure success for all students.”
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