{"id":28750,"date":"2017-12-18T16:31:51","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2017\/12\/18\/macomcom\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:16:32","slug":"macomcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2017\/12\/18\/macomcom\/","title":{"rendered":"Andover High Grad is one of First NECC Students to Take Advantage of State\u2019s New Affordable Transfer Option"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16978\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2017\/12\/Shannon-horizontal.jpg-print.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16978\" class=\"wp-image-16978 size-medium\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2017\/12\/Shannon-horizontal.jpg-print-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16978\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shannon Williams of Andover is one of the first NECC students to sign up for the Commonwealth Commitment, which provides new financial incentives for students who start at a community college and transfer to a state college or university.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Shannon Williams, a 2016 graduate of Andover High School, is very pleased about her plan to earn an associate degree from Northern Essex Community College and then transfer to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uml.edu\/\">UMass Lowell<\/a>.\u00a0 As a participant in the state\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.edu\/masstransfer\/macomcom\/home.asp\">Commonwealth Commitment Program<\/a>, she\u2019ll earn her bachelor\u2019s degree for under $35,000, maybe less, if she applies for and receives scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Affordability was important to Williams when she was choosing a college.\u00a0 Her father died very unexpectedly a month before her high school graduation and her mother had limited funding to help support her daughter\u2019s college education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was going to go to UMass Lowell, but it was too expensive,\u201d says Shannon.\u00a0 My older sister came to Northern Essex and then transferred to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merrimack.edu\/index.php\">Merrimack College<\/a> and my cousin graduated from here; so I decided to start here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams arrived at Northern Essex in the fall of 2016 with clear academic and career goals.\u00a0 She plans to earn an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/learn\/credit-programs\/liberal-arts\/liberal-arts-psychology\/\">associate degree in psychology<\/a> from Northern Essex in 2018, a bachelor\u2019s in psychology from UMass Lowell in 2020, and eventually a master\u2019s in counseling, possibly from Merrimack College.\u00a0 Her goal is to be a therapist, helping people to overcome mental illnesses like depression.\u00a0 \u201cI love helping people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>When meeting with her academic advisor, Grace Young, Williams learned that her psychology major qualified for the Commonwealth Commitment, a statewide program designed to help students who transfer from a community college to a state college or university save money on their degree.<\/p>\n<p>The Commonwealth Commitment is open to full-time students who complete an associate\u2019s degree within two-and-a-half years and a bachelor\u2019s degree within two years and maintain a 3.0 GPA throughout the program.<\/p>\n<p>These students receive cost savings including a freeze on tuition and mandatory fees for all four years and a 10% rebate at the successful completion of each semester.\u00a0 In addition, they receive a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.edu\/masstransfer\/\">MassTransfer<\/a> tuition credit once they enroll in the bachelor\u2019s degree program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI loved the idea of being locked into one price,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cI won\u2019t have to pay more, more, more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who will be inducted into the national honors and leadership society on Friday evening, likes it at Northern Essex.\u00a0 \u201cI love it here.\u00a0 I like how small the classes are.\u00a0 Teachers know my name and I can ask them questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.edu\/masstransfer\/macomcom\/home.asp\">Commonwealth Commitment<\/a> covers sixteen programs from biology to business to computer science and community college graduates can transfer to any of Massachusetts\u2019 state universities or UMass campuses including Mass Maritime Academy and Mass College of Art.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more, contact Grace Young, dean of academic support services, articulation, and\u00a0transfer, <a href=\"mailto:gyoung@necc.mass.edu\">gyoung@necc.mass.edu<\/a> or 978 556-3449.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u200b<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shannon Williams, a 2016 graduate of Andover High School, is very pleased about her plan to earn an associate degree from Northern Essex Community College and then transfer to UMass [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Andover High Grad is one of First NECC Students to Take Advantage of State\u2019s New Affordable Transfer Option - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2017\/12\/18\/macomcom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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