Hildreth Institute in the Daily Hampshire Gazette

This article originally appeared in the Daily Hampshire Gazette

After watching enrollment decline for years, local community college officials are feeling optimistic about rising numbers of students signing up for classes, in part thanks to MassReconnect. The new state financial aid program covers the cost of community college for people over the age of 25 who have never obtained a higher education degree.

Implementation of the program this fall has meant 200 more students enrolled at Holyoke Community College compared to last year. At Greenfield Community College, enrollment is up by more than 8% since last fall.

“With the financial barrier removed, folks have new perspectives on the possibilities for the future,” said Patrick Tanner, GCC’s interim dean of enrollment management. “MassReconnect has been a part of that, but it’s also part of the coming out of COVID.”

Enrollment at Massachusetts community colleges began shrinking years before the pandemic, according to the Hildreth Institute, a Massachusetts-based higher education research and policy institute. They released a report in September detailing how declining college enrollment could impact the local economy.

“These downward trends that started a decade ago have been further exacerbated during the pandemic, raising alarm about the potential negative impact on [Massachusetts] workforce development, economic growth and competitiveness,” the report reads.

In fiscal 2014, there were approximately 4,645 full-time-equivalent students enrolled at HCC. That number dropped to 3,096 by fiscal 2020, and by fiscal 2021 — which began on July 1, 2020, during the height of the pandemic — enrollment decreased by nearly 20% from the year before, declining to just 2,494 full-time-equivalent students. This year, there are a total of 3,820 students enrolled at HCC, 1,245 of whom are taking classes full time.

Mark Hudgik, the college’s interim dean of admissions and financial aid, attributed HCC’s shrinking student body before the pandemic to improvements in the labor market since 2010, enabling people to pursue careers without advanced degrees. During this same period, tuition also increased at HCC, rising from $4,750 per semester in 2015 to $7,190 per semester this school year.

HCC still has not regained the number of students it had before the pandemic, Hudgik said, but the college appears to be “bouncing back” with a boost from MassReconnect.

Declining enrollment is happening at the same time that high school graduation rates are increasing, the Hildreth Institute noted. Fewer students are immediately enrolling in college compared to the 2015-16 academic year, when 73% of high school graduates went straight to college. By comparison, 63% of graduates went on to college during the 2020-21 academic year, and the institute also found that the sharpest decline was happening among students of color or those from low-income families.

The state instituted MassReconnect to break down some of those financial barriers, state Senate President Karen E. Spilka said in August.

“In Massachusetts, we know that getting an education is a key to the middle class, supporting a family, building a life, and pursuing a brighter future,” Spilka said in a statement. “In this year’s state budget, we thrust open the doors to those opportunities and countless others.”

The fiscal 2024 budget also allocated $18 million toward scholarships for nursing students at community colleges, which has covered the cost of approximately 1,500 students, the state reported. Sixty students are receiving free tuition at GCC because of this program, spokesperson Daniel Desrochers said.

Supporting these 60 nursing students and the college’s 68 MassReconnect participants beyond the classroom has been a priority to the school, said Tanner. The school offers students tutoring, gym memberships and counseling services as part of their tuition, while also operating a technology lending library so that students can borrow a computer or mobile hotspot to complete their assignments.

“We need to be ready to support all the students that are coming to us,” Tanner said. “Times are changing, and we need new tactics. What got us here, won’t get us there.”