Massachusetts will, for the first time, award money to public colleges based on merit instead of how many students are enrolled, according to an article in The Boston Globe.
The $2.5 million grant, taken from the finalized 2012 state budget, will go to colleges that propose ways to increase graduation rates, advance science instruction and career counseling and improve minority enrollment.
The state has appointed five out-of-state specialists, so the facilitators remain unbiased, to award the grants as part of the Vision Project— the Department of Education’s plan to improve state colleges and universities.
Of the state’s 13 colleges, eight will receive about $1.1 million, including three of the University of Massachusetts schools.
The largest grant issued, of $233,417, will go toward Worcester State University to help a 10-year-old program that sends college students into Latino communities to work as teacher aides.
Ten of the state’s two-year colleges will also receive about $1.4 million to improve science and math education.
“A lot of our students were skating through their senior year in high school with no math and getting rusty,” said Gail Carberry, president of Quinsigamond Community College, which will receive $180,471, to The Globe. “So we started boot camps. We tested the students going in, we tested them going out, and many of them improved. Some of them jumped up as much as two levels in six weeks.’’
While 69 percent of Massachusetts students pursuing a bachelor’s degree graduate from four-year colleges in six years, the highest rate in the nation, only 20 percent of students earning associate’s degrees earn them within three years, which ranks 40th nationally.
The state hopes the grants will improve rankings and improve economic and social benefits.
“If you can get someone up that ladder, a host of seemingly intractable problems go away,’’ said Paul Grogan of the Boston Foundation, which underwrites several college-completion programs, to The Globe. “Those kids by and large will not be incarcerated, will not do drugs, will not be big consumers of federal- and state-funded services. They will participate in their communities and vote at much higher levels.”
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