Students, Lawmakers Praise Governor’s College Tuition Plan ; State House: Under the Proposal, the State Would Offer Up to $2,000 to Qualified Maine Students.
By PAUL CARRIER Staff Writer
When Andrea Kontner enrolled in what was then Southern Maine Technical College in 2002, she used all of her savings and lined up two part-time jobs, leaving her “completely exhausted all the time.” She managed to get a federal Pell Grant for the 2003-2004 school year, but she still had to take out a $3,500 loan that year and hold down a job.
Kontner, 22, who will graduate from the University of Southern Maine in May with a degree in nursing, says state scholarships proposed by Gov. John Baldacci would have eased her burden if they had been available. Baldacci wants the state to provide scholarships to students enrolled at public colleges and universities in Maine to help cover their tuition costs.
“It definitely would have helped me,” said Kontner, an Ohio native who became a Maine resident during her second year of college. “I think it might help more students go to college.”
Under the plan, the state would spend about $5.5 million a year to assist students in the University of Maine System, the Maine Community College System and Maine Maritime Academy. The state would provide up to $2,000 per student, over two years, to Maine residents who qualify for federal need-based Pell Grants. An estimated 15,000 Mainers would benefit from the state program over four years, according to the Baldacci administration.
Lawmakers in both parties and educators are praising the proposal, although some join Kontner in saying that linking the scholarships to Pell Grant eligibility may be too restrictive.
A competing plan backed by House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D- Portland, would lower community-college tuitions to the national average instead of offering scholarships, but Cummings praised Baldacci for “stepping forward and making college more affordable and therefore more accessible.”
But legislators say finding the money to pay for state scholarships may be problematic because Baldacci’s funding source – savings from the elimination of 600 teaching jobs tied to larger classes – is expected to be highly controversial.
“I think the tuition reimbursement is a great idea,” said House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, because a college education has become “more unaffordable” even as it has grown in importance. “There’s bipartisan agreement (in the Legislature) around helping more people get access to higher education,” Pingree said, in part because federal grants and loans for college students have failed to keep pace with rising costs.
Annual tuition and fees average $2,800 per student in the Maine Community College System and $6,429 for in-state students enrolled in the University of Maine System. At Maine Maritime Academy, tuition and fees for in-state students start at $8,255 and run higher in some cases.
Barbara Woodlee, the president of Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, said most of her students “tend to work long hours” because they get too little financial aid, or none at all. Anne Connors, the financial-aid officer there, said some students even take time off to earn money.
New state scholarships would encourage more students to attend college and help them spend more time on their studies once they get there, said Edna Szymanski, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Maine. State Education Commissioner Susan Gendron agrees.
“We don’t want our students to be working 40-hour jobs and also trying to carry a full load in college,” Gendron said. Szymanski said the scholarships also may shrink the 47 percent of Mainers who leave the state to earn four-year degrees.
Like their Democratic colleagues, Republican legislators see making college more affordable as a worthy goal, said Sen. Richard Nass, R-Acton. He agreed with Pingree that financing the plan is another matter.
The issue, Pingree said, is not whether Democrats and Republicans will embrace tuition reimbursements, but whether “all the pieces of the budget are going to fit together,” including approval of a school-reform plan proposed by Baldacci.
In addition to increasing class sizes, the governor wants to cut the number of school districts in Maine from 290 to 26.
“Funding is always the issue” in situations like these, said Assistant House Minority Leader Robert Crosthwaite, R-Ellsworth. In this case, he said, skeptics question Baldacci’s claim that the state can drop more than 600 teachers through attrition, without layoffs. And he said some lawmakers are sure to challenge the wisdom of enlarging the average class size from 16 to 17 students in middle schools and from 15 to 17 students in high schools, as Baldacci has proposed.
Fewer teaching jobs will mean fewer openings for Maine graduates who want to go into teaching, said Senate Minority Leader Carol Weston, R-Montville.
Still, Pingree and Nass said they hope making college more affordable will be a high enough priority for both parties to ensure that the Legislature will find some money, even if the tuition program cannot be as robust as Baldacci has proposed.
“I think there’s a growing awareness that this is important” and that funding should be provided, Pingree said.
Staff Writer Paul Carrier can be contacted at 622-7511 or at:
pcarrier@pressherald.com
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