Massachusetts 2035 · 04 / 10

Education

Your child will learn to build and make a living by age 18

The moonshot

Make Massachusetts the Launchpad State

Make Massachusetts a place where people can learn, build, and start a new chapter at any age. Turn K through 12 into AI-personalized learning, hands-on workshops, and practical life skills. Reinvent colleges as company launchpads, research centers, and social clubs with the infrastructure to make them work. Open lifelong learning through AI so people can master new skills, change fields, and reshape their lives.

The opportunity

A picture of 2035

A child learns at their own pace, builds things with their hands, and tries work they never knew existed. By 18, they have a portfolio, paid experience, and a route to supporting themselves. They can work, start a company, go to college, or combine all three. College adds something worth choosing: a lab they could never access alone, collaborators who push them, and a community that lasts. Years later, a parent learns a new field around work and family, builds a project with an AI tutor and a human mentor, and moves into a different career. Your first job does not have to define the rest of your life.

Better in three dimensions

Every initiative has the same test: improve quality, lower prices, and reach more people.

Quality: A better experience, with safer, more reliable results.
Affordability: Lower prices and more value for the money you spend.
Access: More people can use it, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances.

What we can build on

Massachusetts can connect public schools, vocational programs, employers, community colleges, and research universities into a much richer learning environment. Our bet is that institutions with the strongest infrastructure will lead: people, laboratories, workshops, computing, mentors, and places to gather. MIT is the kind of institution this vision looks to—not a committed partner in this plan.

The gap to close

Too many students spend years preparing for the next institution without discovering what they can actually do. Too often, we debate whether college is worth it without asking what the institution uniquely makes possible. The answer should be visible in the skills, discoveries, companies, friendships, and opportunities students leave with. Adults need that same freedom to explore. Learning a new field should fit around work and family, with clear ways to demonstrate skills and move into a new role.

The work starts here.

Top three key initiatives

Children learn with a teacher, personalized AI tools, workshops, and everyday life skills

Reimagine K-12 with AI-personalized tutors

Give every child strong foundations in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and AI fluency, with personalized practice and feedback that meet them where they are. AI should help teachers give individual attention; qualified educators remain responsible for instruction, wellbeing, and important decisions. Protect student data and test whether tools improve learning rather than simply add screen time.

Make doing a normal part of the week: build a robot, grow food, cook a meal, repair something, tell a story, work in a team, and solve a problem for someone else. Teach age-appropriate money skills, communication, responsibility, and how to ask good questions. Equip workshops and give teachers the time and support to turn curiosity into confidence. Childhood should open possibilities, not sort children prematurely into careers.

Make high school a launchpad for doing real things: start a venture, build a useful product, create art, solve a customer problem, and learn a craft from people who practice it. Pair that work with job-expertise training through shadowing, short employer projects, internships, co-ops, pre-apprenticeships, and paid apprenticeships in hospitals, labs, trades, startups, manufacturing, public service, and creative work. Let students try several fields, meet mentors, and discover what excites them.

Turn that exploration into capability: a portfolio of real work, practical life skills, and a supported route to earning a living at 18. Pay productive employment, provide transport and accommodations, and supervise placements under applicable age, hour, and hazardous-work rules. Keep strong academics, arts, civic learning, and college options open; this is about more choices, not a single track. 6 Aim for 10,000 paid work-based learning places a year by 2029, with access and placement quality reported publicly.

A college combines company launchpads, research laboratories, and social clubs

Reinvent college to be company launchpads, research centers, and social clubs

Reinvent college around three clear purposes: launching companies, research, and social clubs. Build company launchpads where students find cofounders, make prototypes, meet customers, and turn ideas into organizations. Open serious research and development through faculty, equipment, labs, and hard problems. Invest in social clubs and communities where friendships, collaborators, belonging, debate, and lasting relationships form. Design for these roles directly, rather than pretending they are side effects of attending lectures.

Infrastructure underpins all three. Labs, workshops, computing, clinical and industry connections, venture support, housing, common spaces, clubs, and mentors should be accessible parts of student life. Our bet is that colleges with the strongest infrastructure—MIT is a model for this ambition—will win by making things possible that students cannot easily do alone. Measure access and outcomes, not prestige alone; help community colleges and regional institutions build their own strengths and share resources.

Adult learners use computers, mentors, and hands-on workshops to develop skills in new technical fields

Embrace lifelong learning with AI

Give every resident a way to start learning a new field whenever they are ready. Use AI tutors to map what someone already knows, identify the skills they need next, explain unfamiliar ideas, and build a personal learning plan. Combine short lessons, immediate feedback, and realistic practice with real projects and human mentors. Check progress through work people can actually do, so a course completion becomes demonstrated capability.

Make it practical to change jobs, industries, or direction without starting life over. Offer flexible courses, evening workshops, shared labs, and paid work-based training that fit around a job or family. Connect learning to employers, professional requirements, and opportunities to start a business. Let people test a new field through small projects before committing to a larger move, and build on skills they already have.

Treat education as something you can return to throughout life. A technician should be able to explore software, a designer to learn robotics, or a parent returning to work to build expertise in a new domain. Publish the time and cost of learning, evidence of skill gained, and what happens next: a new role, a better job, a business, or a project that matters to the learner. Use those results to improve the programs.

The supporting work

A Jobs-at-18 compact with employers and public service

Invite hospitals, manufacturers, labs, municipalities, trades, and small businesses to reserve visits, mentors, paid placements, and entry-level interviews. Publish actual commitments; named companies in this vision are prospective partners, not signatories.

A diploma that demonstrates capability

Develop a Mastery Diploma proposal covering core academics, practical projects, financial and civic knowledge, and work-based learning. Build it with educators, students, employers, and colleges so it preserves access to further study.

Pay and equip the educators who make it work

Move starting teacher pay toward $70,000, subject to district agreements and funding. Support workplace coordinators, technical instructors, summer training, and smaller mentoring groups where needed.

Remove the cost of participation

Pay students for productive employment. Cover transport, equipment, meals, and disability accommodations so opportunity does not depend on family income. Prefer employer and public funding; any adult training finance must have transparent terms and strong consumer protections.

Open the infrastructure, keep every door open

Build shared-access agreements for university labs, makerspaces, computing, mentors, and venture programs, with supervision and clear safety requirements. Connect high-school students, college learners, and adults changing careers to those resources. Let paid experience and demonstrated skills count toward further credentials where agreements allow. Offer AI learning support and flexible workshops throughout life.

The path to 2035

Proposed milestones. Expand against evidence, delivery, and public value.

2027
Start with learning and real exposure
Propose pilots in 10 districts serving 5,000 students, with high-need communities first. Equip workshops, test AI tutoring, and build employer/public-service partnerships. Establish age-appropriate visits and an initial target of 2,000 paid placements over two years. Map available college labs, makerspaces, venture programs, and community spaces; invite institutions to propose shared-access pilots. Include adult-learning pilots with libraries, community colleges, and employers to test AI tutoring alongside mentors and practical projects.
2029
Expand what students prove
Expand toward 40 districts only where independent results justify it. Pursue 10,000 paid work-based learning places annually. Track literacy, math, practical skill, wellbeing, employer feedback, and whether students can reach placements reliably. Test cross-campus access to equipment and mentors, and track who actually uses it. Evaluate adult pilots on demonstrated skills, time and cost to learn, and movement into new roles before expanding them.
2031
Make experience a normal part of school
Make every district capable of offering AI tutoring, hands-on learning, and a supported route into real workplaces. Seek a statewide mastery standard and broader educator support. Colleges and employers recognize the same demonstrated skills. Expand college launchpad, research, and community-access pilots only where student outcomes support them. Extend effective AI-supported retraining programs to residents changing jobs or fields, with flexible schedules and recognition of prior skills.
2035
Make earning at 18 and lifelong reinvention real options
Aim for every graduate to have strong core skills, a practical portfolio, meaningful workplace experience, and a supported route to living-wage employment at 18. Students who choose college retain that option; students who choose work can support themselves and keep learning. Make college a deliberate next step for discovery, venture-building, deeper expertise, and lifelong relationships—not the only acceptable path. Keep that freedom open throughout adulthood: residents can return to learning, develop new expertise, and move into another role or field.

Questions & answers

If students can earn at 18, what is college for?

Earning at 18 creates independence; it does not make college obsolete. College can provide three powerful things: a company and innovation launchpad, research and development, and a social community. The case for attending should be concrete: access to people, equipment, ideas, and opportunities that justify the cost. A student can choose college because of what they want to build and learn, while retaining the ability to support themselves.

Will AI replace teachers or turn school into screen time?

AI should provide individual teaching and practice while educators remain accountable for the whole child. Preserve discussion, reading, projects, arts, sport, and relationships. Evaluate learning and wellbeing independently; do not adopt a fixed screen-time model because a vendor claims faster results.

Will apprenticeships become cheap labor or track poor kids away from college?

Make access broad, participation supported, employment paid, and placements supervised. Keep academics and further-study routes open. Audit opportunity and outcomes by income, disability, and district. At 18, compare actual earnings with a published local basic-needs benchmark rather than calling any job a living.

Show the results.

The public scorecard

These are the measures we would publish to judge progress.

Core learning
Practical mastery
Paid placements
Job offers and employment at 18
Earnings versus a local living-cost benchmark
Continued education
Student wellbeing and access
Access to labs, workshops, and mentors
Student research and company-building outcomes
College community participation and belonging
Adult skill gains and completed practical projects
Time and cost to learn a new skill
Career changes and employment outcomes after retraining

Sources & context

Plans and proposals are distinguished from existing activity. Source notes include relevant dates and context.

[6] U.S. Department of Labor: Youth employment, Fact Sheet 43
Youth employment has age and occupational restrictions, including hazardous-work limits. Massachusetts requirements also need to be applied to each proposed placement.

The team

Announcing in 2028

We’ll unveil the education team lead and support team in 2028.

Team lead — to be announced in 2028
Support team member 1 — to be announced in 2028
Support team member 2 — to be announced in 2028
Support team member 3 — to be announced in 2028