This spring, the first class will graduate from a small, residential two-year school just outside Boston that serves low-income, first-generation students.
At Messina College, students live and study on a 45-acre leafy campus in Brookline, taking small classes and labs, and working closely with mentors. Generous financial aid helps keep their costs low. The college says most students pay an average of $2,000 per year for tuition, room and board.
“When I was a college student over 20 years ago, we didn’t have models like this,” said Father Erick Berrelleza, a Jesuit priest and founding dean of Messina. “You just sort of had to figure it out, or you didn’t. You tried to find a mentor, or you didn’t. We want to take some of that guessing out of the equation.”
Berrelleza is the son of Mexican immigrants and was the first in his family to attend college. He said Messina College was created to serve students like his younger self.
In 2020, Boston College in Chestnut Hill acquired nearby Pine Manor College, which had been facing enrollment declines. Boston College saw it as an opportunity to build on its Jesuit mission and reach a growing demographic as the overall college-age population is projected to decrease. Four years later, Boston College officially opened Messina.
Across the country, colleges are bracing for a sharp drop in the number of traditional college-age students. But one population group continues to grow: Latino students. Some institutions are addressing this shift by adapting their recruiting efforts and institutional offerings to support a more racially and economically diverse generation of learners, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college and come from lower-income households.
While colleges can no longer consider race or ethnicity in admissions decisions three years after the Supreme Court banned the practice, Berrelleza says about 40% of Messina students come from Latino backgrounds, compared with roughly 14% at Boston College and 20% nationwide.
That’s largely because of how — and where — the junior college recruits. It targets public schools in Boston, Springfield, Cambridge and Providence.
“We’re looking for students who are first-gen, with high financial need,” Berrelleza explained.
How Messina makes college affordable
One of those students is Kaylee Castillo, a first-year from Lawrence and the daughter of Dominican immigrants. She is studying health science and hopes to become a nurse.
Castillo said she was nervous about going to college because no one in her family had experience with student loans, and Messina’s financial aid played a major role in her decision to enroll.
“Biggest factor, honestly, because my family does not have money,” she said. “I was kind of scared to go to college because I knew that a lot of people come out with debt. I knew loans were a big thing, and I have no clue how loans work. My mom could not tell me. Nobody I knew could tell me.”
Economist and former Vassar College President Catharine Hill said affordability remains the biggest barrier to college for Latino students. The total cost of attendance at schools like Boston College have crept past $90,000 a year — well above the median annual household income for Latino families, which Census figures put at about $65,000.
Hill says the first priority for schools committed to increasing access and success in college should be addressing that affordability issue.
“If you want to spend some money, spend it on need-based financial aid. Don’t spend it on football teams,” Hill says. “And then you have to go to the schools where those students are and recruit them and convince them that they can get a fantastic education at the institutions in the northeast.”
Nationwide, only about half of Latino students complete a degree within six years, compared with roughly 70% of white students.
“That’s been really consistent for many years. That has not budged,” said Amanda Fernandez, CEO of Latinos for Education, a nonprofit focused on increasing Latino representation in schools and educational leadership.
As the country’s demographics shift, Fernandez said closing that educational gap is essential for the nation’s economic growth.
“Latinos are the workforce of the future,” she said. “If Latinos are not also contributing to the economy, then it affects every person in the country.”
Policies such as free community college and early college programs for high school students are helping boost Latino enrollment, Fernandez said. But she said colleges also need to step up and provide stronger academic, financial and social supports to help more students finish degrees and enter the workforce.
“I think I'm ready for a four-year bachelor's degree, because I feel comfortable with the system.”David Roman, a first-year student at Messina
Messina’s mission and name trace back to the Jesuits’ long history in higher education and the founding of their first school in Messina, Sicily, in 1548.
“It was a very local type of institution where the townspeople just wanted a school right in their backyard and Jesuits responded to that need,” Berrelleza said.
Today, in Brookline, Messina enrolls more than 200 students, mostly from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The school offers associate degrees and a pathway to a bachelor’s. Students can apply wherever they wish, but have the option to transfer to Boston College if they maintain a 3.4 GPA.
Controversy over Foundation program
The launch of Messina College, however, hasn’t been without controversy. A recent investigation by the student newspaper The Heights found that one of Messina’s smaller programs, Foundations, offers what critics describe as a “back door” admissions path for some wealthy, well-connected applicants who were initially denied admission to Boston College.
Berrelleza rejected the characterization and said the student report was “a gross misrepresentation” of the 30-credit program.
“We’ve always said that [Foundations] is a unique program from Messina College,” he said, adding that it enrolls 15 students who pay full tuition but don’t earn a degree, although participants do live in dorms with other Messina students. “The goal has always been to create access to a Jesuit education, and we’re providing them with that same opportunity.”
Editors for The Heights declined GBH News’ request for an interview, saying their reporting speaks for itself.
To bridge any existing class or cultural divides, Messina encourages its students to participate in extracurricular activities on Boston College’s main campus a few miles away in Chestnut Hill.
Castillo, the first-year student from Lawrence, often takes the shuttle between the two campuses to participate on BC’s dance team. Fellow first-year student David Roman from Springfield plays saxophone in the BC marching band. He hopes to transfer to the main campus after graduating from Messina next year.
“I think I’m ready for a four-year bachelor’s degree because I feel comfortable with the system,” he said, wearing a BC Eagles sweatshirt. “I feel comfortable with the people on main campus and I already made a bunch of connections.”
Roman said there can be some culture clash between the two campuses, but many of the students he’s met at BC have been welcoming and curious.
“I feel like a lot of them are genuine and try to get to know me as a person knowing where I come from,” he said. “They don’t really try to flex their money.”
Messina’s first class graduates in May. The college says 40 students have already been offered spots at BC to continue toward a bachelor’s degree, right in their backyard.
