MASSACHUSETTS HIGHER EDUCATION COMMISSIONER Noe Ortega will step down this September, after about four years on the job.
Ortega’s departure will further shift the state’s education leadership, following turnover within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler stepping down earlier this year. Tutwiler was replaced by new Secretary Stephen Zrike Jr., and Commissioner Pedro Martinez began leading DESE last July.
The Board of Higher Education will meet later this month to consider an interim commissioner, and start the process to secure a permanent replacement for Ortega.
Ortega is stepping down so “he and his wife can be closer to aging family members,” the Department of Higher Education said.
During his time as commissioner, the state gave approval for the first three-year bachelor degree programs in Massachusetts. Education officials have touted the option as a new strategy to boost affordability for students through limited programs offered by specific universities creating a sub-120 credit “applied” bachelor’s degree.
Ortega has also overseen a major expansion of early college. The push to give more high school students the chance to take free college classes has been a combined effort of DHE and DESE, funded in large part by the income surtax on high-earners. Gov. Maura Healey has set a goal of having 100,000, or about 40 percent of all high schoolers, participating in early college by 2036. The state expanded the program by 1,692 seats to more than 12,000 high school students this upcoming fall.
Other major changes in higher education during Ortega’s tenure — including free community college and major financial aid expansions — are also funded by the surtax, which was approved by voters in the same month he took the commissioner job.
Following these efforts to make higher education more affordable, public higher education enrollment returned to pre-pandemic levels, driven by community college enrollment growth, which increased 38.5 percent between fall 2022 and fall 2025.
