UMass Community College Advantage Scholarship Provides $10K Boost
Image by Ed Brennen
03/04/2025
By Ed Brennen
Graphic design major Rhondyna Reth was pleasantly surprised when she opened her financial aid letter from UMass Lowell last year and saw a $5,000 UMass Community College Advantage Scholarship (UCCAS) included.
“Where did this come from?” the Lowell native wondered.
By finishing in the top 10% of her class at Middlesex Community College (where she had a 3.99 GPA), Reth automatically received the scholarship, which provides a total of $10,000 for the two years it takes to complete her bachelor’s degree at UML.
“It definitely relieves a lot of the financial burden,” says Reth, who has taken out just $3,000 in student loans thanks to the UCCAS and a few other scholarships.
Launched last year by the UMass system, the UCCAS provides a pathway for students at Massachusetts’ 15 community colleges to complete their bachelor’s degrees at any one of the four UMass campuses.
“We believe this initiative will lead to more community college graduates choosing to finish their four-year degree at UMass, which will accelerate their upward economic trajectory and strengthen the commonwealth’s workforce,” UMass President Marty Meehan said in announcing the scholarship.
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For Christopher Simmans, receiving the UCCAS helped clinch his decision to transfer to UML’s Francis College of Engineering to get a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
“It wasn’t a hard choice; transferring to the UMass system was the most financially sensible thing to do,” says Simmans, a 4.0 GPA student at Massachusetts Bay Community College, where he earned an associate degree in electrical and computer engineering.
After getting free tuition at MassBay through MassReconnect, a state program that covers the cost of an associate degree for people 25 and older, Simmans received a Massachusetts High Demand Scholarship to go along with the UCCAS at UMass Lowell.
“The state has been very helpful,” says Simmans, who is originally from Denton, Texas. “I feel very fortunate, because I don’t think I would have had this opportunity otherwise.”
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“Without that (UCCAS) scholarship, I’m probably not in school. For me, it was a game changer,” says Wartman, who attended Northern Illinois University in the mid-1980s before leaving school to work in construction as a licensed electrician. Because of back issues, he decided to return to school in 2021, enrolling at Middlesex to pursue his longtime interest in theater.
Since he was no longer eligible for Pell Grants, Wartman didn’t know how he would pay for school if he transferred to UML. Then the Financial Aid Office told him that he qualified for the UCCAS.
“That put me over the top,” says Wartman, who is now looking forward to a study abroad trip to Cádiz, Spain, this summer.
“Without the (UCCAS) program, none of this would have been possible for me,” he says.