Top education officials in Massachusetts are promoting free community college and financial aid to high schoolers. That included a stop in Springfield Monday.
Governor Maura Healey's Office is calling it a "Higher Education Financial Aid Road Show" and on Monday, that meant a visit to Central High School by Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler and company - promoting the state's investments in higher education and encouraging students to apply for FAFSA.
Setting up shop in the high school's library, Tutwiler and Higher Education Commissioner Noe Ortega met with about two dozen juniors and seniors to talk college and what's available to them.
The two put heavy emphasis on filling out FAFSA forms - documents central to determining financial aid for students either looking into college or already enrolled.
“When I was a high school history teacher, I got asked the same question over and over and over again, which is – ‘Why do we have to learn this?’ ‘Why do we have to do this?’ and my answer was always the same - the purpose of an education is to gain control over your own life,” Tutwiler told a group of upperclassmen, including students taking part in the state’s GEAR UP initiative (Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs).
According to the education secretary, FAFSA form completion is low across the Commonwealth, post-pandemic. About 51 percent of high school graduates completed one last year - down from 58 percent pre-pandemic, a figure Tutwiler also says is pretty low, given the kind of financial aid available in the state.
Gathered around the education secretary and commissioner, students said often, the biggest issues they run into are the form's density, coupled with the need for tax forms their parents can’t always easily produce.
Having said that, better, general awareness would go a long way, as well. Social media campaigns, YouTube ads, and other promotions would help, according to Matthew Levy - a senior who says the FAFSA is game-changer for him.
"Get the word out more - maybe, perhaps, put some ads on YouTube, advertisements," the student planning to major in psychology in college told WAMC. "They mentioned advertisements - Instagram ... and things like that. But I suggest that making videos on YouTube - not everyone skips ads. I watch ads sometimes if it's pertaining to school.
Also being promoted - the state's free community college offerings as well as other initiatives, such as MassGrant and MassGrant Plus.
“If you want to go to any of the public four-year universities here in Massachusetts, thanks to all the support we've gotten from the legislators here, you can go there for free if your parents or you qualify for the Pell Grant," he told the students. "The only way you know that is you fill out the FAFSA, the free application. But if you don't qualify for Pell Grant, and your parents still make under $100,000, you can go there for half the tuition and fee cost, as well. So, you get up to 50 percent - this includes all of our state universities and our UMass campuses - that's a pretty good deal.”
Overseeing a school of nearly 2,000 students, with a four-year graduation rate well over 90-percent, Central Principal Dr. Tad Tokarz tells WAMC any work to promote higher ed options available to juniors and seniors can make a difference. It’s also a key part of the job.
“They're young, they don't really know what's going to be in their future. We want to set them up so when that time comes, they have options, they have opportunity,” the principal said. “Just to get the students prepared for whatever endeavor they're going to face, is a big part of our responsibility.”
Springfield Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sonia Dinnall described Tutwiler and company’s visit as critical - firming up what's on the table for Springfield students looking into college.
“The fact that they shared information ... straight from the horse's mouth really helped our students understand that this wasn't rumor, myth or hearsay - this was actual fact," the superintendent told WAMC. "So, our students can act on that fact, share that information with their other peers, as well as with their parents."
