MTA President Max Page's testimony before the Board of Higher Education
MTA President Max Page's testimony before the Board of Higher Education
MTA President Max Page delivered the following remarks to the Board of Higher Edcuation on Tuesday, Dec. 9:
Good morning.
I was very glad to participate on the CHEQA Commission, which came out of the MTA’s Cherish Act legislative proposal, filed and championed by Senator Comerford. I appreciate the work of Chair Gabrieli, especially in doing his very best to bring a wide range of stakeholders together. Many of those on the commission disagree on a number of other policy issues, but because of the deep appreciation of public higher education, we were able to find much common ground.
I am pleased about the core recommendations around student success, affordability and emphasis on addressing the low pay of staff and faculty across our system.
They build on the advances we have been making. After years and years of declining investment, the Commonwealth has spent the last five or six years making a U-turn, back toward investment in public higher education. And we have so much more to do.
On the commission, I spoke fervently in support of the SUCCESS program and in setting the goal of having true, debt-free, public higher education.
The 30 to 40 percent increase in enrollment in community colleges because of the free community college programs – MassEducate and MassReconnect – indicates that there is a hunger for higher education among our people. It is moving to hear the stories of our residents – young and old – finally having a chance to pursue their dream.
The MTA has fought for free public higher education, as a right, in the way that preK-12 public education is. Why should a graduate from Amherst Regional High School get a free outstanding public education, and then walk down the hill to UMass Amherst and have to pay $18,000 a year in tuition and fees? I am glad that this report points in the direction of debt-free, public higher education.
But if we want all residents to have access, and to support the very people and groups who have most often been denied opportunities, we have to – as noted earlier– support the 70 percent of the cost of attending public college, beyond tuition and fees. That includes housing, food, transportation, child care and more.
And we must address the huge problem of low pay for our staff and faculty. It is a problem across all three sectors of institutions. When you account for the high cost of living in the Commonwealth, we are at the bottom of the states to which we compare ourselves. This is a shame.
I especially want to lift up the stunning gap in pay for our community college faculty and staff, as Massachusetts Community College President Claudine Barnes has addressed. That low pay is exacerbated by the growing number of students who are coming to our community college campuses – something, of course, we are thrilled about. We need more full-time faculty. And we have to end the ongoing exploitation of adjunct faculty – they experience terrible pay, no job security, no health insurance, no retirement. We cannot build a great public higher education system on exploited higher ed gig workers.
My main message to you, at this moment, is to embrace these recommendations and push hard for their implementation.
Resist the austerity narrative that takes hold in this state, one of the wealthiest states in the wealthiest nation on earth. As you know, there is no better near- or long-term investment for the economic, social and cultural health of the Commonwealth than allowing all of our residents to have access to higher education.
The Fair Share Amendment has generated $3 billion, in this past year alone. That is $1 billion MORE than the Legislature budgeted for. Our state’s rainy-day fund is $3 billion greater than what credit agencies, such as Standard and Poor’s, recommends we maintain. And with a $3 billion federal tax cut – just this year – for the wealthiest 1 percent in the Commonwealth, there is more than enough funds to invest in public higher education.
Furthermore, at a moment when public higher education is relentlessly under attack by the federal administration, this report and the policies that we should implement will themselves be a form of resistance. I consider the creation of the public higher education system one of the United States’ greatest accomplishments.
So, Chair Gabrieli, thank you for the enormous amount of work on this commission and the valuable final report.
Please, do not let it sit on a shelf.
My hope is that this board will agree on a way to organize its work around implementation of each of the recommendations. The MTA will be partners in that work.
Thank you.