Hildreth Institute in MassLive
‘Bursting at the seams’: Free community college straining resources
This article originally appeared in MassLive.
As free community college became a reality in Massachusetts this year, Stacie Hargis, business professor at Middlesex Community College, couldn’t help but see the irony.
Despite the effort by the state Legislature to improve student lives through accessible education, they were leaving behind one population: the people working at the community colleges, Hargis said.
“We are still serving students the way we always do — we’re just busting at the seams,” said Hargis, who is also the Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator at Middlesex Community College.
At the end of July, Gov. Maura Healey signed into law universal free community college for Massachusetts residents regardless of income or age. The initiative, also known as MassEducate, was part of bucking a decade-long trend of declining enrollment in community colleges.
The MassEducate program follows another initiative by the Healey-Driscoll administration called MassReconnect, which launched in August 2023. MassReconnect allows residents 25 years and older to obtain a degree or certificate through any public community college tuition-free.
Since universal free community college went into effect, enrollment at community colleges has grown by 14% compared to fall 2023 and first-time college students or new transfer students student enrollment increased by close to 26%, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
Free community college has allowed Giana Sosa, a 20-year-old Cape Cod Community College student, to focus on school instead of having to work eight-hour shifts four days a week at Trader Joe’s.
She has become a peer mentor and founded the Phi Beta Kappa society. While free community college has helped her personally, she said it has also brought a liveliness to Cape Cod Community College that wasn’t there before.
“It feels like there’s so many more students on campus and student life is just through the roof,” Sosa said.
While classes have become larger, she said it has been a good thing with more students from a range of backgrounds and ages.
At the same time, as enrollment spiked from free community college, two problems emerged: retention and pay issues. Workloads have increased and there has not been enough funding for student support and student stipends.
“Compensation’s been a challenge for some years now in terms of what we pay faculty. But when your enrollment’s been declining, it hasn’t been on the forefront,” said Nate Mackinnon, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges.
“Now that enrollment is jumping up thanks to our fantastic new program it highlights this other challenge because we need to grow to meet that demand,” Mackinnon said.
The strains of universal community college is something that state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, told MassLive in October that she is aware of.
The work to support higher education isn’t ending at free community college, Spilka said.
“We realize that there are other consequences of such an incredible growth and enrollment,” Spilka said.
Salary and staffing
When Hargis first joined Middlesex Community College in 2013, she was making $48,000 with a master’s degree living in Lowell.
On top of teaching five classes, she waited tables at night.
“It was rough on my body — it’s tough to work a night shift and then come in and work during the day,” Hargis said.
She eventually switched to picking up more classes, adding two to five extra classes at Middlesex or other institutions like Clark University on top of her five-class course load.
After over a decade at Middlesex Community College, Hargis’ base pay professor salary has increased to around $70,000 but she is still teaching additional classes or has stipend work or other projects as a second job.
With her other work, she has earned around $127,000 thus far in 2024.
Hargis isn’t alone in teaching over her required course load.
“This semester alone, I’m teaching an equivalent of 8 classes at 3 different colleges, and I’m a tenured professor. If something doesn’t change soon, I will need to leave the Massachusetts Community College system,” said Dr. Laurie Ann Carlson, faculty member at North Shore Community College.
As salaries are less competitive than other states or institutional counterparts, the workloads of employees have become more burdensome as enrollment has surged.
“This is impacting our health and wellness,” Hargis said, adding that “it’s a lot to take on.”
More community colleges are having failed searches for full-time faculty positions because few people accept the positions once they know the salary, Mackinnon said.
Since universal free community college, Hargis has had to pick up additional classes on top of an already full course load because of the demand for entrepreneurship courses and the lack of adjunct faculty.
Outside of faculty, other employees at community colleges have had a burden placed on them — especially people who work in advising, financial aid and registration, according to Mackinnon.
Part of the pressure comes from the increased number of students interested in free community college but also because of a difficult rollout of the Department of Education’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) last year.
The FAFSA form allows students to obtain federal aid to help pay for college.
Glitches, delays and technical errors plagued many college and university enrollments and burdened their financial aid staff. Rollout for this form has been delayed again this year.
Before free community college was passed, Holyoke Community College prepared by using grant funding and other resources to fulfill positions and support for the expected demand, according to Mark Hudgik, Dean of Strategic Recruitment Initiatives at Holyoke Community College.
However, a staffing challenge became evident last semester when the college didn’t have enough faculty to meet the number of students wanting to take general education requirement classes, Hudgik said.
Some students had to delay their studies until the spring semester and others had to get creative with advising to determine how they could fulfill requirements.
Expecting even more students in the spring semester, Hudgik said the college is working to identify adjunct faculty earlier to meet the needs of students and reevaluate staffing levels to meet the needs of students.
What should be done?
With free community college also came an increase in funding for student success. However, the increase in support — such as funding for mentoring and advising — didn’t match the jump in enrollment and levels of need, according to Mackinnon.
“We need substantially more resources from that perspective to be able to support our students and their completion,” Mackinnon said.
“This is really about getting people to do the things that we already know work. We just haven’t had the capacity to do it,” he later added.
Student support is especially necessary for keeping students enrolled in community college.
While there isn’t data on the success of continued enrollment in MassEducate thus far, 33% of students who had free community college through MassReconnect didn’t re-enroll for a second semester, according to data from Boston-based education think tank Hildreth Institute.
“Right now in Massachusetts, the graduation rate is stagnant at 34% at community college for multiple years. And the 34% is to graduate within six years. So this is normally a degree you finish in two years. So that’s quite low,” said Bahar Akman Imboden, managing director and founding member of the Hildreth Institute.
Funding support programs such as the Accelerated Study Associate Program could help address these low percentages, according to Akman Imboden.
The program, which began at the City University of New York, helps students earn an associate degree in three years by providing them with wraparound support such as intensive advising, tutoring, career counseling and other services.
While MassEducate offers a stipend of up to $1,200 per academic year ($600 per semester) for books and supplies to any student and another $1,200 if eligible for federal Pell grants, increasing stipends for low-income students could also be important for keeping students enrolled, Akman Imboden said.
Increasing employee pay to the price point of other community colleges throughout the country is also integral for keeping faculty and staff, according to Hargis.
“Incremental salary is not going to cut it. It’s going to continue to keep us behind,” Hargis said.
She suggested looking at the starting pay of community colleges in areas like California where the average cost of living is higher than in other states.
The average faculty salary, adjusted for cost of living, in Massachusetts in 2021 was around $68,000 compared to nearly $117,000 in California, according to a report from ASA Research commissioned by the Massachusetts Teacher Association.
“We are working harder and for way less money compared to our peers,” Hargis said.
While Hargis said she knows she could teach elsewhere for a higher salary, she is dedicated to the mission of community college.
“This is economic justice,” Hargis said, later adding that community college “immediately feeds back into our community.”