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.”
