Welcome to the Fall 2026 Semester

Dear Berklee students,

Welcome to the fall semester. As classes begin this week and we welcome students to our campuses from more than 100 countries around the world, we look forward to a fantastic year. I’m grateful to keep learning here every day—and to experience the extraordinary talent and energy of our students at moments like entering student convocation. Art and teaching are both rooted in connection, rooted in bringing people closer together. Here at Berklee, we’re all so fortunate to discover new ways to form connections—from our students and from our amazing faculty and staff.

I wanted to share a few updates as we continue to focus on Berklee’s strategic priorities of affordability, careers, and sustainability. This is a living, breathing, plan that reflects our values, the challenges we are facing, and opportunities for Berklee. We’ve made incredible progress in the last year, and will continue to build on that momentum.  

Affordability

We saw tremendous growth in the last year in addressing affordability, including increasing aid for new entering students by 5 percent and doubling the amount of Thrive Scholarships awarded to continuing students. The Thrive program creates significant impact, reducing family debt by 50 percent and increasing graduation rates for recipients by over 20 percent. Thanks to the incredible work of the advancement team, we raised over $30 million last year, making it the largest single fundraising year in Berklee’s history. Building on this milestone will help us continue to make progress toward the goal of fully meeting demonstrated need, as well as make key investments in the strategic plan. 

We are very proud that while international enrollment in the US declined 17 percent, it remained stable at Berklee. Berklee is truly a global community, and protecting that quality is vitally important. Students and cultures from around the world contribute immeasurably to making Berklee such a special place. But our international students face a unique set of challenges. Many faculty and staff at Berklee have been focused on ways to ensure the most exceptional students in the world can get to Berklee and complete their degrees. 

Careers

In 2026, we more than tripled the number of fellowships, expanding opportunities for students to gain valuable experience at 140 partner organizations across industries. Historically, 80 percent of fellowship students at Berklee are employed at graduation. We’ll continue to grow and scale the program as a direct pathway to careers for our students. Academic leadership at Berklee is actively weaving experiential learning into the curriculum for every major, in keeping with Berklee’s longstanding commitment to career readiness for our students. 

Technology
Berklee has always stood at the forefront of the convergence of creativity and technology, from film and video game scoring and music production to turntablism and electronic digital instruments. Today, we are all facing the greatest technology-driven disruption to creativity and the creative industries in our lifetime. Berklee is deeply committed to our obligation to educate our students about these technologies, to ensure our students can not only navigate changing creative industries, but also shape them in an artist-centric way. 

As part of this effort, the Berklee Artistic Emerging Technology Lab (BEATL) is convening important conversations around the future of music and technology. In June, BEATL welcomed artists, educators, students, and industry leaders for the inaugural AI Music Summit (AIMS). Conversations at AIMS reinforced the idea that the future of music technology must be driven by creators, musicians, and educators, whose perspectives are essential to shaping these tools. While technologies evolve, Berklee remains focused on the foundations that brought you here: creativity, collaboration, connection to faculty, and a sense of community.  

The Berklee Alumni Network
Our alumni network is the largest, most accomplished creative community in the world and the most powerful in supporting new Berklee graduates as they embark on their careers. Setting a new standard for alumni support, I’m excited to relaunch Berklee Connect on September 18 and 19 at the inaugural Berklee Homecoming, an event that will bring our alumni, our community, and the city of Boston together around music. Berklee Connect has been designed to support our nearly 90,000 alumni, offering networking opportunities, mentorship, free continuing education, job boards, and exclusive industry deals. The platform will also be available to students, faculty, and staff, fostering stronger connections across our entire community. 

Sustainability

Telling our stories—and sharing our impact and vision—is an important part of sustainability. Our recent visual identity launch gives us new ways to tell those stories and connect with people around the world, including through our bold new streetscapes. If you haven’t seen it, check out the video We Are Berklee: The Sound of What Comes Next, representing our global community connected by creativity, collaboration, and the arts.

Ensuring our global leadership position for the future requires pushing forward, innovating, and trying new things. In April, I invited the community to share ideas for diversifying our revenue and reaching new audiences through next-generation learning experiences. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed; we received nearly 200 different ideas to grow and diversify in ways that are consistent with our mission. Your feedback has been invaluable as we focus our work in this area. 

Together, we will build on this momentum and continue to make meaningful progress for Berklee. I hope you have an amazing semester and I look forward to following and supporting your development throughout the year.

Thanks, 

Jim Lucchese
President