MESA, AZ — First Lady of the United States Jill Biden visited the East Valley on Monday, February 13.
She joined U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Mayor John Giles at Mesa Community College early Monday afternoon "to highlight how affordable community college programs like Mesa College Promise are providing students with career-connected learning opportunities that lead to good-paying jobs."
For a growing number of Mesa High School graduates, the Mesa College Promise offers a pathway to a future many never believed they had.
The program is opening doors to high education for students, including many first-generation college students at Mesa Community College.
"I am 100% glad I made this choice," said Alyssa Montenegro, a first-year student at MCC.
It wasn't that long ago Montenegro believed the expense of a college education would make a career in the medical field out of reach.
"I was like okay let's look at the cost difference and I realized if I was going to go to college I was going to need some aid at that point," she said.
Montenegro is one of a growing number of Mesa High School graduates enrolled in Mesa Promise.
It's a commitment by the City of Mesa and MCC, giving qualified Mesa High School graduates free tuition and fees to attend the school for two years.
"It's a lot of help for me and my mom to be honest," freshman Nicolette Edmonds said.
The goal of the city and the college is to help develop a new generation of workers who are able to meet the demands of the high-tech manufacturing base developing in Mesa and throughout Maricopa County.
"We need more communities to follow Mesa's lead," said First Lady Biden.
The Biden Administration has stressed the importance of a community college education as a pathway to obtaining an affordable education while increasing the prospects of getting a good-paying job.
"Across the country, we are seeing programs just like this one bridging the gap between what students learn and the careers they will eventually find," the First Lady said.
Dr. Biden's visit wasn't lost on Nicolette Edmonds, "Knowing that I'm in a program the first lady came to talk about lets me know the value of it. Lets me know it's way more important than I thought it was."
On Friday, FLOTUS will make a similar visit to Ivy Tech Community College in Valparaiso, Indiana.
President Joe Biden was most recently in the Valley visiting TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company that had been building its new headquarters in the Valley for the past two years.
