As enrollment at community colleges booms under the state's new free tuition program, the faculty that teach and support the burgeoning population are asking for their first wage equity adjustment in 25 years.
"Our colleges are facing a wage and working conditions crisis that threatens board initiatives like the equity agenda and workforce development," Joe Nardoni, vice president of the union that represents the 15 community colleges' faculty and professional staff members, told members of the Board of Higher Education on Tuesday.
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Lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey made community college free for all Massachusetts residents starting this past fall, saying the program would create opportunities for low-income Bay Staters and promote racial equity.
The "free" label seems to have succeeded in attracting more students to campus: between the fall of 2023 and fall 2024, the first semester that tuition and fees were waived, the state's 15 community colleges added 9,492 students -- a 14% boost.
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That jump followed another annual enrollment increase, 8.7% in 2023, after lawmakers and Healey that year made community college free for students 25 and older, which reversed over a decade of declines in community college enrollment.
The union that represents the faculty, however, says they are not equipped for the huge boost in enrollment as their members are significantly underpaid compared to peers in other states.
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"The result of low salaries is chronic under-staffing, which makes it impossible for us to recruit the high-quality full-time faculty, professional staff we need to help our students succeed," Nardoni of the Massachusetts Community College Council said.
He continued, "This, in turn, threatens our workforce development programs such as nursing, because we often cannot find the faculty and staff at the levels demanded by their professional accrediting organizations. It threatens MassEducate and MassReconnect and our SUCCESS programs, because we do not have enough full-time support staff to provide these new students with the level of service they need to succeed. It threatens our ability to achieve the goals of the equity agenda, because we cannot attract the high-quality faculty and staff of color."
MassEducate and MassReconnect are the free-for-all and free-for-over-25 programs, and SUCCESS is another state-funded program to provide students with additional support, like career services.
The law governing collective bargaining in Massachusetts, Chapter 150E, does not allow the union to negotiate solely with the governor's office -- instead it must get new labor agreements that govern everything from salary adjustments and promotions to the consideration of academic credentials baked into legislation that moves through the full legislative process, Nardoni said.
The last time a so-called classification study for the 15 community colleges was approved was 1999, with a second phase in 2002.
Nardoni told the News Service that because of the "essential neglect of the State House" to update the classification study for 25 years, the salaries for Massachusetts's community college faculty has fallen behind.
"The starting salary, in fact, for community colleges is objectively worse now than it was before the General Court funded the original classification study of 1999," he said at the BHE meeting.
He continued, "The starting salary for an assistant professor with two master's degrees in 1995 was $31,762. The value of that salary today in today's dollars is $65,430. The current starting salary for an assistant professor today with equal qualifications is $61,696. The average salary community college faculty in Massachusetts is $68,309 which is $23,000 less than the cost of living adjusted faculty salary for community college faculty in low-tax New Hampshire, it is more than $36,000 less than the average salary in New York. It is more than $53,000 less than in California, and it is more than $32,000 less than the US average."
He said that 82% of faculty and staff at community colleges have second or third jobs to make ends meet.
Nardoni told the News Service that the union is having "indirect conversations" with the Healey administration's Executive Office of Administration and Finance about a wage equity adjustment.
Once they have the administration's support, he said, they will go to House and Senate leaders and try to move legislation towards getting salary adjustments for their faculty.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Administration and Finance did not immediately return a request for response to Nardoni's comments or an update about how talks with the union were going.
Senate President Karen Spilka told the MetroWest Daily News that the state's fiscal 2025 budget created a commission that will make recommendations including "improving faculty and staff recruitment and retention."
"Our community colleges depend on faculty and staff, and we are aware of the challenges they face," Spilka said in her statement, the Daily News reported. "As we do with every part of the budget, we will ensure a proper appropriation for MassEducate to allow the program continued success."
Rep. Carmine Gentile of Concord said in November, the Cape Cod Times reported, that the state "can afford to pay a 70% increase" to faculty salaries. "Community college faculty, adjunct faculty have been underpaid for decades," he told the Times.
The article also said Sen. Michael Brady of Brockton, who worked at Massasoit Community College before his election, said he plans on working with the Legislature on the issue.
"The hardworking faculty and staff of the community colleges want the programs to succeed, but we need your help," Nardoni told the higher education board Tuesday, "and the full funding of the community colleges from the Legislature so that we can draw the best, the brightest, the most committed candidates to our colleges."