UNDER A PLAN unveiled by Gov. Maura Healey, thousands of lower-income students will have access to free tuition at a public college or university. It’s ambitious, and there’s a lot to like – but it fails to account for those low-income Massachusetts families whose dreams are tied to the unique services and specialized degree programs at a private college or university.

The MassGrant Plus expansion plan that Healey recently announced includes no additional support to deserving low- and middle-income students who strive to attend the best private colleges and universities in the world, which happen to be in Massachusetts.

Instead, the vast majority of state financial aid remains beyond the reach of a gifted student who gets into one of our many world-class institutions. For students and families, this means that your first and best choice, based on academics or proximity or a planned major or maybe just a long-held aspiration, does not matter. Simply put: If you need the state’s help to go to college, you must go to a public college.

This isn’t just about telling a hard-working and talented student from Everett or Worcester or Agawam that they aren’t going to get much state help if they get into the college or university that is the best fit for them. The state’s plan is also pitting public colleges and universities against every single private institution in Massachusetts. Smaller colleges from western Massachusetts to the North Shore offer some of the best nursing, law enforcement, pre-law and business administration programs anywhere – several were recently cited by the Wall Street Journal as among the best in the country.

The perception that only well-off students choose to attend a private institution is simply wrong. Our colleges and universities educate over 12,500 MassGrant recipients – a need-based state grant awarded to Massachusetts students of the lowest income bracket. Further, these same 4-year institutions educate more Pell Grant students than the Commonwealth’s 4-year publics, providing opportunities to low-income students from Massachusetts while also encouraging low-income students from around the country to bring their talents here. In other words, private institutions have just as many low-income – and middle-class students as the publics, and provide far more in institutional aid, scholarships and grants to make college affordable.

This plan is not only troubling for those students whose best fit is not a public institution, but also problematic for thousands of faculty, staff, and employees at dozens of colleges and universities. These institutions – and their students and employees – are the heart and soul of many small and mid-sized host communities across Massachusetts.

It is no secret that demographic shifts have impacted many small and mid-sized colleges. In many states that may not matter much to the overall economy. But in a state that is known worldwide for its private higher education, and where those private colleges and universities are the engines of jobs and growth, we need to constantly keep in mind that what helps our schools helps our state. What corn is to Iowa, higher education is to Massachusetts.

Higher ed in Massachusetts is overwhelmingly the realm of private nonprofit schools.

More than 290,000 students attend private colleges and universities in Massachusetts – more than twice as many attending four-year public colleges. Where do we get the STEM graduates who drive research, medicine, startups, and patents? Eight out of 10 graduates in 2021-22 attended a nonprofit private college or university. Finally, in healthcare, this state’s most pressing need and most promising job sector, 13,373 degrees were awarded in 2022 from the private institutions and just 3,605 from the four-year public institutions. If we want more healthcare workers, we need to help students go to the schools that educate them.

Massachusetts is incredibly fortunate to be home to over 100 colleges and universities – public and private – including world-renowned universities, liberal arts colleges, and workforce-aligned institutions. Students graduating from a Massachusetts high school have a seemingly endless array of options to stay in the Commonwealth for college and then join our knowledge-based workforce. The diversity of these institutions is as varied as the programs they offer, and that is the true strength of our higher education eco-system. Unfortunately, this very strength is at risk if our state government uses taxpayer dollars to pick one sector over the other by so drastically limiting the options available to low-income students. The money should follow the student, not the college.

If a deserving student needs state help to get a higher education, the state should make the dollars available regardless of where the student chooses to get that education.

Rob McCarron is the president and CEO of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, representing 59 private, nonprofit colleges and universities across the Commonwealth.