Down on Debt> UMaine Presque Isle students earn distinction as Northeast’s thriftiest grads

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PRESQUE ISLE — Misty Bartley is a junior at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, studying communications full time. She also regularly works two part-time jobs and a third job irregularly so she won’t have to borrow a lot of money to pay for her education.

She’s an example of the hard-working students who have given UMPI some national recognition lately because of their thriftiness.

A native of nearby Mars Hill, Misty works 10 hours a week in the university relations office and 12 hours a week at Bath & Body Works at the Aroostook Centre Mall. She also fills in as a teller at KeyBank about one day a month for five hours.

According to university officials, all of this work coupled with a dislike of debt are the main reasons UMPI graduates are ranked by U.S. News & World Report as having the least debt among all graduates from regional liberal arts colleges in the Northeast.

According to the magazine’s special edition of Sept. 6, “How To Pay For College,” 49 percent of 1998 graduates left UMPI with no debt whatsoever. Among the 51 percent who graduated with debt, the average load amounted to $10,340, the lightest in the Northeast, a region defined as Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and the New England states. (The calculation did not include loans taken out by parents.)

Aroostook County students, who make up about two-thirds of UMPI’s student body, are renowned for their aversion to debt.

So far, Misty has had to take out only one loan. That was to help her live in a dormitory on campus during her sophomore year. During her freshman year, she lived at home, and scholarships covered her tuition. This year she is sharing an apartment and paying the bills.

The low debt at UMPI comes despite the fact that Aroostook County incomes are rock-bottom in the Northeast. The median income in Maine last year was the lowest in the Northeast, and Aroostook County’s was thousands of dollars lower than that.

On the other hand, Maine’s public, in-state tuition is lower than that of all other Northeastern states except New York, which was just 1 percent less expensive in 1997-98, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The average tuition and fees at public colleges in the Northeast averaged $4,534 in the 1997-98 school year. UMPI’s was $3,240.

Officials at UMPI also attribute its graduates’ low debt to the fact that 70 percent of them received some federal or state financial aid. That’s about normal for Maine, according to Peggy Crawford, financial aid director for the University of Maine, but it’s a bit higher than other Northeastern states because Maine’s average income is low.

More importantly, officials point to the work ethic in Aroostook County, where many elementary and high school students spend a few weeks in the fall picking potatoes.

“Most students come from Aroostook County and have a real strong work ethic,” said Nancy Hensel, UMPI’s new president. “There’s a real attitude among students not to enter into debt.”

More than three-quarters of students at the school work full time or part time while studying, Hensel said.

Another factor may be that many students at UMPI come from The County, and a high percentage live at home, allowing them to save on room and board costs.

While the percentage of students who work may not be so unusual, UM’s Peggy Crawford said that based on anecdote and her 20 years’ experience in financial aid, “students from northern Maine are much more resistant to taking out loans than students from the southern part of the state.”

She speculates that many people in The County know or are related to someone who has either gone through farm bankruptcy or home remortgaging.

“The people and the culture [of Aroostook County] are adamantly against borrowing,” Crawford said. “People are more likely to work and not get into debt.”

Misty said that her parents “always kind of leaned us away from being in debt. I hate it if my bills come and I don’t have the money to pay them.”

She doesn’t even have a credit card. “My mom wants me to get one, but I’m too scared to,” Misty said.

She thinks the work ethic and the responsibility students have in money matters are regional traits. “People in this area work hard for their money and kids notice it,” she said.

Kids also start to work at a young age. The first jobs often are on potato farms during the harvest.

“Farmers have all kinds of jobs that need to be done, so they go for the younger kids,” said Misty, herself a veteran of the potato fields.

Misty’s older brother Chad spent his freshman year of college at private Norwich University in Vermont.

The financial aid package he received from the school that year covered almost all of his room and board. He needed just a small loan to cover the costs. His sophomore year tuition was increased sharply.

“I would’ve needed another loan,” Chad said. “My financial aid package didn’t increase enough to cover it.”

He returned to Maine to live at home, work full time, and study at UMPI because it didn’t make sense to go $30,000 to $40,000 into debt, Chad said.

“A college degree is a college degree,” he said. “Where you went to college means very little after your first job. What matters is your performance and character.”

He graduated from UMPI in 1992 and now works as a certified public accountant at Chester M. Kearney in Presque Isle.

“Many high school graduates want to get out of The County to see what the world is like,” Chad said. “But that’s tempered by the high cost of education.”