“I’ve been a massage therapist for the last 15 years. I love it, but it doesn’t pay very well,” says Jared Green. After a recent divorce he started contemplating his future as a single parent. He knew he needed a career change. “Plus, I feel like there’s only so far I can go with massage,” a physically demanding job that most practitioners retire from in their early 50s. Jared, now 37, says he’d often thought about working as a mental health counselor, a similar field that would allow him to continue doing what he loved most—helping people resolve their pain—and where his massage experience would be highly relevant. But the fact that he never went to college always held him back—until a flyer arrived in his mailbox last June.“It was a mailer about 802Opportunity,” a program administered by VSAC which allows Vermonters with a family income of less than $75,000 a year, who do not already have a bachelor’s degree, to enroll at Community College of Vermont (CCV) tuition-free. “I was trying to connect the dots to my future path, and it was great timing, because classes started in September. I reached out to CCV and VSAC, filled out a form, filled out the FAFSA financial aid forms, applied, and got accepted. It was very easy.” Jared just finished his first semester at CCV, where he’s working toward an associate degree, the first step toward an eventual master’s and a mental health counseling license. “I figure I have about 10 years of massage work left in me. It’ll probably take me about that long to get my education and get my license in mental health, so I might as well start now. I’m playing the long game,” Jared says with a smile. His goal is to go into private practice, just as he did with his massage business, and to focus on somatic—or body-based—mental health counseling. “I like helping people one-on-one,” Jared says. “With massage therapy, people literally come in limping and walk out normally. That feels very rewarding to know I’ve done that in an hour.” While results will likely come more slowly in the mental health field, Jared likes the fact that he’ll still be able to do that individual work. “From my years as a massage therapist, I know how to tap into people’s stories that are held in the body. Now, I want the training to do that on a deeper level,” says Jared, who thinks a lot of his prior training and experience will count for academic credit, an option CCV offers through its Assessment of Prior Learning (APL) course. He hopes to earn at least 15 credits, which would put him a third of the way toward his associate’s degree.While Jared completed his first semester with a 4.0, he also admits that in the past school wasn’t always a positive experience. “I was a good student up through junior year of high school, but then my teachers told me I should take AP classes. Those turned out to be overwhelming, and I got burned out halfway through senior year.” The experience was a confidence blow for Jared, who completed his GED instead of graduating with his class. Even after finishing massage school a few years later, Jared says that experience made him doubt whether he could handle college. Jared’s experience at CCV, however, has been welcoming and confidence-boosting. “The professors have been friendly and accommodating. I’ve found it surprisingly approachable, and I feel like I can do this.”  He says being in school again has been energizing, both because he’s studying something he’s really interested in, and because he sees it as a way to connect with his kids, now 7 and 5. “I’m looking forward to doing homework with them. When I was a kid, homework was like punishment. I would go to my room and work on it alone. I’d like us to work on our assignments all together at the kitchen table.”“Going to college has always been this idea in my head, but it’s taken me a while to believe in it,” says Jared. It was more than a lack of confidence that held him back; the cost seemed equally insurmountable. “Many people in this country assume that going to college will put you in debt. So as much as I’ve wanted to go to college, I don’t know if I’d be doing it right now without VSAC,” Jared says. “The financial impact of divorce is a lot. For college to be free right now is just perfect timing. Of course, 802Opportunity needs to be funded annually by the state, but so far, I’m receiving a free education. It’s awesome.”Class registration is open now for the Spring 2025 term at CCV, and classes start January 21. For more information about 802Opportunity, contact VSAC. This story is produced by Vermont Student Assistance Corp., created by the Vermont Legislature in 1965 as a public nonprofit agency, to advocate for Vermont students and their families to ensure that they achieve their education goals. Our vision is to create opportunities for all Vermont students, but particularly for those—of any age—who believe that the doors to higher education are closed to them. We begin by helping families save for education with Vermont’s state-sponsored 529 savings program. To help Vermonters plan and pay for college or career training, our counselors work with students in nearly every Vermont middle school and high school, and again as adults. Our grant and scholarship programs attract national recognition, and our loan programs and loan forgiveness programs are saving Vermont families thousands of dollars in interest. Visit vsac.org to learn more.Read the story on VTDigger here: College helps massage therapist expand into mental health counseling.