NORTH ADAMS — The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has received $684,096 from the state to fund out-of-the-classroom-support for students who need help completing their degree.

The college was one of nine institutions to receive State University Success 2.0 funding, which is meant to boost student retention and degree-completion efforts, the Healey-Driscoll administration announced Jan. 12.

At MCLA, where just under 50 percent of students are Pell Grant-eligible, Chief of Staff Joshua Mendes said the grant will help implement more support services for low-income and marginalized students — from offsetting costs of campus housing to funding credit recovery courses.

The college's most recent six-year graduation rate is 46.6 percent for the cohort that entered in 2019, with the college noting this rate takes into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This funding represents a significant investment in our students' futures," said MCLA President James F. Birge. "The SU Success 2.0 program will allow us to provide the wraparound support and proactive services that research shows make a real difference in helping students persist and graduate."

MCLA will use this funding round to provide greater access to summer student housing, which can open the door to more local opportunities, Mendes said.

“What it does is it allows them access to internships here in Berkshire County, which is a major, what we call high impact practice for students,” he said. “It's a major piece to their learning initiatives. It also provides them more access to on-campus jobs and provides them more access to be able to take courses here on campus over the summer.”

The funding will also allow the college to offer two credit recovery courses over the summer and increase professional development resources by allowing staff and faculty to work as success coaches and tutors for students, said Mendes.

And when life gets in the way of education, the college wants to use the funding for emergency purposes. The Success 2.0 funding will help fund a system in the Student Affairs Department that allows students who may have an emergency to request help alleviating barriers to going to school.

“It could be something as simple as ‘I can't afford a book for this semester,’” Mendes said. “Or, it could be, ‘My car broke down, I can't get the class and I need support to be able to help get that fixed, or arrive to campus, or gas cards,’ — those types of pieces where it helps the student get through that life bump and allows them to not necessarily worry about that life issue, but be able to stay focused on completing their degree.”

The state hired consulting firm ICF International to collect data at each university to help implement the funding and determine if it helps improve retention. Initial data collection will begin in late spring, though the college did not yet know when that information will be released.

Aside from MCLA, the state universities that received this funding included Bridgewater State University; Fitchburg State University; Framingham State University; Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Massachusetts Maritime Academy; Salem State University; Westfield State University and Worcester State University.

"The degrees that students earn will provide them with increased economic mobility for themselves and their families," said Noe Ortega, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, in a press release. "It is a key component of the American Dream that you are working to make real in Massachusetts."