CommonWealth Beacon staff

America is falling out of love with college, and it’s not hard to see why. 

First, colleges are not doing enough to build purpose, confidence, agency, and maturity. Colleges are not the cause of growing anxiety and a declining sense of purpose among young people; but, faced with the reality of these trends, colleges have not changed their models nearly enough to help students build purpose, confidence, agency, and maturity. 

Second, colleges are not doing enough to build “durable” or “transferable” skills and the networks and experiences students need to transition successfully from high school to 21st century careers that pay good wages.

As a family medicine physician at Boston Medical Center, I have cared for hundreds of individuals and families experiencing homelessness over the last 20 years. The landscape of housing services that I can offer them continues to change, sometimes leaving me with a great sense of hope and possibility and, at other times, more hopeless than ever for my patients’ restoration to health.  

Recently, this seesaw from hope to hopelessness has become more extreme, as decisions by our state leaders seem to be simultaneously pulling in opposite directions when it comes to housing help for those most in need. Two families for whom I provide medical care illustrate the mixed messages of our state’s recent housing policies affecting the state’s most vulnerable residents.

“There’s a place in the world for the angry young man,” wrote Billy Joel almost 50 years ago.  Unfortunately, that place seems to have expanded in our public square (for both men and women), creating echo chambers of primal screaming on both the right and left, leaving the large majority of us wondering where all the middle ground went. 

For much of the past year, I’ve been writing a series of issue briefs for CommonWealth Beacon (see below) on a variety of controversial policy topics, providing evidence-based arguments pro and con, in contrast to the bumper stickers from the left and right that too often pass for civic discourse.

Five and a half hours into a tedious rules debate at the Massachusetts State House in January 2019, acting Speaker Tom Petrolati ordered a roll call vote on a noncontroversial amendment, and voted no. Within seconds, red lights, representing “no” votes, lit up the electronic vote-tally board in the House chamber as dozens of rank-and-file members followed his lead.  

Then, realizing he had made a mistake (but not realizing his mic was still on), Petrolati stammered: “It’s a yes?… Switch ’em. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes!”  

After his vote on the large display board flipped to green for “yes,” so, too, did the votes of at least 63 Democratic representatives. (The video of this moment remains on the Legislature’s website, beginning at 5:35:49.)

Over the last two years, Massachusetts launched a bold initiative with a clear message: college is accessible again. Community college? Tuition- and fee-free for everyone. Four-year public college? Tuition- and fee-free if you’re low-income. Books, supplies, cost of living costs? Covered, up to $2,400, by stipends for those who qualify. 

These promises were backed by transformative new programs, MassReconnect and MassGrant Plus Expansion in 2023, followed by MassEducate in 2024, all made possible by the Fair Share Amendment, a surtax on millionaires that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2022 to fund public education and transportation. The rollout was visible. The message resonated. For the first time in years, students and families began to believe in public higher education again.

Health care spending in Massachusetts is just about the highest in the world. It is enough to finance health security for all of us. Health security means that we get care that’s effective, competent, quick, and kind—with no more than tiny co-payments and no worry about medical debt. To redeem the promise of plastic insurance cards, health security requires having enough good doctors, dentists, nurses, hospitals, and other caregivers where we need them.   

That doesn’t make health security for all easy to win—just easier than housing, education and job training, global warming, personal and national security, decent living standards, or the other huge challenges we face. Because we already spend enough on health care to get the job done.