State budget makes strides in education efforts – Bay State Banner
By Avery Bleichfeld
On July 29, when Governor Maura Healey signed the budget for Fiscal Year 2025, it finalized a process allocating $57.8 billion in funding for the commonwealth and state-funded organizations, including millions for educational efforts across the state.
Those allocations include state dollars for long-fought programs for students across age ranges. Among them: increased support for early education and child care programs, all the way to $93.5 million investment in funding to make the state’s community colleges free for all students who don’t already have a higher degree…
For Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the Common Start Coalition, which advocates early childhood education support, the efforts are about providing students a level playing field in their K-12 education and beyond…
For the state’s youngest students, the budget also brought new support.
“It put a historic amount of money into early education and childcare. It’s the most generous budget for childcare in the history of Massachusetts,” said Farnitano.