Without greater investment in salaries for faculty and staff at community colleges in Massachusetts, a free tuition program launched this summer to great fanfare may be “doomed to fail.”

That’s the alarm some education leaders are sounding as they call for better pay for faculty and staff that are struggling to make ends meet. The demand for more pay coincides with the launch of the state’s new MassEducate program, which allows state residents who don’t already have a bachelor’s degree to attend community college for free. As an influx of students swarms community college campuses, educators and other staff say they may not be able to give each student the attention they need while receiving meager pay.

Joe Nardoni, vice president of the Massachusetts Community College Council union (MCCC), said that the historically low salaries of community college faculty and staff “threatens the success of the MassEducate program,” stating that many members of the union already “on a regular basis have to teach eight, nine, 10 classes a semester.”

“We simply can’t do it because we don’t make enough money to have the time to do it,” said Nardoni. “MassEducate is almost doomed to fail if we can’t get immediate government intervention.”

Those staff and faculty are in line for an immediate pay bump after the Legislature last week approved and sent to Gov. Maura Healey a supplemental budget for fiscal 2024 that will fund contracts that have had already been negotiated.

Many have an effective date of July 1, but some date back to 2023, including the contract for Massachusetts community college faculty and professional staff. The MCCC, which represents employees on all 15 community college campuses, knocked the House and Senate earlier this month for not acting “in a timely manner.” The council’s contract would be retroactive to July 2023.

“Paying negotiated wage hikes in a timely manner will be crucial to recruiting and retaining the professional staff and faculty we need to meet the growing demand for public higher education,” said MCCC President Claudine Barnes, a Cape Cod Community College professor.

“We want access and accessibility but we also want quality faculty and staff and buildings that aren’t falling down,” said Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which he emphasized has been pushing for free community college for decades. “You’ve got to invest in these institutions and faculty and staff salaries so you can recruit and retain the best faculty and staff.”

Page and other leaders in the state’s education sphere fear that MassEducate, intended to make higher education more accessible and bolster community college graduation rates, will instead become a moment of reckoning for the “decades-long low pay and very high workloads of community college faculty and staff.”

MassEducate, a program within the fiscal year 2025 state budget, sets aside $117.5 million to reimburse community colleges statewide for the tuition and fees of students. Funding for the program comes from the state’s 4% surtax on household income above $1 million, or the Fair Share Amendment. All Massachusetts residents without bachelor’s degrees are eligible for the program.

When a similar free community college tuition program, MassReconnect, launched in 2023, community colleges statewide saw an 8% jump in enrollment. MassReconnect offered free community college to Massachusetts residents ages 25 and older without previous college degrees.

Through MassEducate, enrollment numbers are expected to climb even higher.

At Holyoke Community College alone this semester, 1,923 new students have enrolled, an increase of 14.2% from the fall of 2023. The college is also experiencing an increase in continuing students of 14.6% over the previous year, with 2,419 continuing students. These combine for a total headcount of 4,342 students, 14.4% more than last fall, including 1,401 students who identify as “Latinx” — a 15.5% increase from last fall.

Leaders of the Holyoke Community College Professional Association, Holyoke Community College’s branch of the MCCC, did not respond to requests for comment.

The funding awaiting Healey’s signature for the community college teachers’ contract will provide cost-of-living adjustments for members of the MCCC bargaining unit. These raises would total 8%, with 4% being awarded retroactive to July 1 and 4% awarded Jan. 1.

State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, said that the supplemental budget will be signed into law “any day now,” but recognized the impacts the delayed pay can have on workers.

“Unfortunately it does happen, and some of us are very vocal when it does happen because it affects our constituents,” said Sabadosa. “It does come in retroactively, but as you and I both know, our bills don’t get paid retroactively.”

Still, Nardoni and Page said these increases are still not enough to bring community college faculty and staff up to par with the rising cost of living in Massachusetts. When Nardoni began teaching as an assistant professor in Middlesex in 1995, he earned a salary of $31,762. With this in mind, he said that the average salary today for an assistant professor with no experience and two master’s degrees, adjusted for inflation from 1995 onward, should be $65,430. Rather, the MCCC finds that the real average salary for someone in this position is $57,051 — about 12.8% lower.

In Hampshire County, the living wage for one adult living alone as reported by the MIT Living Wage Calculator is $22.92 per hour, or about $47,674 per year. For a household of one adult and one child, the reported living wage is $43.45 per hour, or about $90,376 per year.

“Members starting now will never be able to have a salary that will allow them to retire,” said Nardoni. “This has been going on for years.”

Nardoni emphasized that increased state investment in community colleges and public higher education more broadly is necessary to correct this trend, which he deems “exploitation,” as administration at these institutions often do not have much financial flexibility to raise salaries.

In the Legislature, Sabadosa said that funding public higher education is something that continues to be a focus, especially when it comes to supporting faculty and staff.

“It affects the workers,” said Sabadosa. “It’s about our constituents being able to pay their electric bill … and put food on the table.”

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com. This article includes content from the State House News Service.