A point of View by Paul Montesino

Education for all at a reasonable cost.
A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino, PhD, MBA, ICCP.

Several weeks ago I published in this newspaper two articles about education, one about the unfortunate Supreme Court decision against the Affirmative Action practices of two universities, a vote that ended the efforts of our schools of higher learning to make knowledge available to all our young students regardless of race, and the other about the students financing of that education.

I presented the financial analysis of a Massachusetts Department of Education report where they listed the yearly educational expenses of every school system in the state. To make that report more meaningful I only used the numbers of the towns served by the Rumbo newspaper.

As I was closing that second report, I suggested a tuition-free university system and supported my view with these closing paragraphs: “We want to have fair institutions of higher learning but are not willing to put our wallets where our mouths are and make them tuition fair by leveling their tuitions with our tax contributions. When the Harvards of the world charge the same tuition as any other university, demand will flatten and so will supply.”

“So, to end my article with a short conclusion driven by a long introduction and presentation, my position is that the same society that pays so much for student learning before they are of legal age should continue its practice after they reach that age I cannot conceive of any better way to end the controversy in a society that pays so much for the education of its young members and forgets them when they age. That doesn’t sound fair to me.”

That article came out on July 22, 2023. On August 24, 2023, Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey announced, and Rumbo reported, that her administration was launching a new program establishing free community college for Massachusetts residents aged twenty-five and older and awarded $100,000 to each of Massachusetts’ 15 community colleges to support the quick implementation of the program this fall. “By making community college completely free for any adult over 25 in Massachusetts without a degree, the Healey-Driscoll Administration is making an historic investment in our state’s workforce and providing hundreds of thousands of adults with a clear pathway to a career” Source: Jim Vander Hooven, president of Mount Wachusett Community College and chair of the Community College Council of Presidents as reported by the Executive Office of Education.

For me, it was like seeing the light we had proposed at the end of the financial education tunnel as we envisioned, and is enough satisfaction. It makes our point of view a point at the service of our readers.

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” said famous French writer Victor Hugo. Our idea has finally found its way, but it has a long way to go.

And that is our point of view today. So long.