The Public
Higher Education Network of Massachusetts has endorsed several pieces of
legislation for this year that are in line with the coalition’s principles.

Passage of
the following package of bills would take us a long way toward the higher
education system that Massachusetts
deserves and needs.

1. An Act for a Program of Capital Improvements to the Public Higher Education System
in the Commonwealth (S. 739)
This bill will allow the state to
borrow three billion dollars for badly needed repairs and construction on all
our campuses. There is a desperate need
for this, since many facilities were built a half century ago. Many campuses have been forced to divert
operating funds needed to teach students into building repair and replacement. Passage of this bill would help reverse the
trends of escalating fees and insufficient hiring.

2. An
Act Relative to Financial Aid (The Commonwealth Covenant) (S. 736)
This bill would establish a loan forgiveness program such
that students who meet certain criteria would not have to repay designated
portions of their loans – e.g. if they stay in Massachusetts and major in science,
technology, math or engineering. This,
together with increases in the financial aid portion of the budget, would be
significant steps toward making public higher education more affordable for Massachusetts residents.

3. An
Act Supporting Access and Excellence in Public Higher Education (S. 732, H. 1188)
These bills would implement various
recommendations of the 2005 Senate Task Force on Higher Education, most notably
closing the $400 million funding gap over the next 7 years to fully fund all the
campuses. Besides providing a badly
needed infusion of funds for all the campuses, each bill contains provisions
that would slow the increase in tuition and fees.

4. An
Act Relative to the Production and Pricing of College Textbooks (H. 1200)
This bill would address the
exorbitant costs of textbooks by requiring publishers to “unbundle” textbooks from
associated products such as CD-ROMs and workbooks By allowing students to purchase only what
they need and providing greater transparency of pricing information, a
significant cost saving for students would occur (with no cost to the state).

5. Adjunct
Faculty Health Insurance Legislation
There are thousands of adjunct
faculty members at our colleges, many of whom teach at more than one campus. Their numbers are steadily increasing, and
several hundred of them are without health insurance. This legislation would provide health
insurance to adjunct faculty teaching four or more courses per year in the
public higher education system in the state, providing increased stability and
fairness to a large and growing sector of our workforce.