The Massachusetts Community College Council is launching a billboard campaign promoting fair pay for educators, emphasizing that chronic understaffing and low wages could undermine the state's MassEducate initiative, which offers free community college. Community colleges in Massachusetts have trouble attracting and retaining qualified staff due to low salaries, with average faculty pay significantly lower than the living wage. The situation is exacerbated by rising enrollment, leading to increased workloads and concerns about losing current staff. Nearly half of educators experience food insecurity, underlining the urgency of addressing compensation issues and the detrimental implications for the initiative's future.
Community college faculty and staff have been chronically underpaid for decades, as well as overworked, which threatens the success of MassEducate.
We've got a significant problem; job openings remain vacant for months and sometimes years because the state's community colleges cannot recruit qualified candidates.
According to the MCCC, community college faculty are paid, on average, $34,000 less than the living wage in Massachusetts, posing a serious threat.
It's untenable. It's also unfair. And we have been pleading with multiple governors to increase the parameters for pay increases for educators.
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