Governor looking for ways to retain more of the students moving through local colleges and universities
BOSTON, April 6, 2026…..With thousands of students preparing to graduate from Massachusetts colleges this spring, Gov. Maura Healey put an emphasis Monday morning on keeping young people, particularly bright tech sector minds, in Massachusetts. The TechGeneration program will aim to combine one a traditional state strength — access to a robust hub of innovation and tech companies — with a solve for the chronic weaknesses of housing access and affordability.
TechGeneration Program Combines Housing and Career Access
Students in the program will get an internship, will spend the summer living in “housing that you can afford, and you’ll be with like-minded community,” and will take part in weekly career development and industry exposure programs, Healey said.
“In other words, you’ll be graduating through this internship program already enmeshed in and invested in the Massachusetts innovation sector. And I think that greatly increases that person’s likelihood of staying here, working here, and founding their startup here. We’re going to start this summer with 100 students and we’ll be looking to grow the program from there,” the governor said.
The program is run through MassTech in partnership with Northeastern University, Mass. Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Boston University.
Healey made the announcement at the end of an address to the business-backed New England Council. A Seaport Hotel ballroom was full with more than 300 people who influence a business community that enjoys a pipeline of talent from local schools but must also contend with the state’s chronic cost-of-living challenges to attract and retain those workers.
She said Economic Development Secretary Eric Paley “is a leader in this space” and said retaining young talent “is a priority in all our economic development conversations moving forward.” Paley was not among the handful of Cabinet secretaries at the event, Healey said, because he was “out hustling for business.”
“We are looking hard at every way we can make it more attractive and energizing for that young talent to get them to stay right here,” she said.
Healey, a Democrat who is seeking a second term this fall, sprinkled some good news through her remarks.
Job Growth Data Mixed with Longer-Term Weakness
On Friday, labor officials reported an increase of 3,700 jobs here in January. That marks the fourth consecutive months of gains, 14,700 jobs added since October started. Later in the day, her administration announced that tax collections exceeded expectations by $64 million or 1.5% in March, keeping revenues more than 2% ahead of budget-based benchmarks.
As she has done in other similar settings recently, Healey ticked through examples of business expansions or relocations here. The three Republicans jockeying to run against her this fall routinely highlight the scarce job growth Massachusetts has seen under her administration and the Bay State’s place at or near the bottom of some economic growth metrics.
Unmentioned in the governor’s remarks were the three companies that informed the state last week of layoffs or other big changes affecting employees: Walmart is laying off 90 workers in Central Mass., Clover Fast Food is laying off 182 people in Boston, and South Shore Elder Services in Braintree is planning an unknown number of layoffs.
The governor’s promotion of recent job growth usually does not include mention that, despite the recent addition of nearly 15,000 jobs, labor officials still estimate that there are about 13,600 fewer jobs here than one year ago, or that the unemployment rate has climbed over the last year from 4.2% to 4.7%.
“We saw a slowdown in the first six, seven months of 2025, no doubt, when there were cuts in education and cuts in science, cuts in research, a lot of uncertainty out there. But since September, we’ve seen things rev up, and they continue to rev up, and that’s a great, great thing,” Healey said Monday.
Massachusetts counted about 3,746,000 payroll jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic hit in February 2020, having climbed steadily from 3,538,000 jobs as of January 2016. That number plummeted to 3,057,000 jobs in April 2020 and then rebounded, standing at 3,708,000 as of January 2023, the month Healey took office.
Since then, the number of payroll jobs in Massachusetts has increased by about 1,400 positions or almost 0.03%, according to state records.
