State seeks ways to get more Mainers to college

AUGUSTA – College students have been home for their winter breaks. But when it comes time to go back to campus, too many of them will never pack their bags, and their college days will be over.

That pattern has been repeated all too often in Maine and needs to be broken if the state is to meet a goal of increasing its post-secondary graduation rate, say the authors of a report presented to lawmakers Wednesday.

“Get students bonded to campus. Otherwise they go home for Christmas vacation or summer vacation, and they don’t come back,” said Sen. Mary Cathcart, D-Orono, a co-chairwoman of the committee that wrote the report.

Many of those students are the first in their families to go to college, or come from homes where higher education is not a priority, Cathcart said.

Others are influenced by hometown pressures.

“Sometimes people in the community will say, ‘You’re too good for us now,”‘ said another committee member, Sen. Margaret Rotondo, D-Lewiston, who is associate director at Bates College’s Center for Service-Learning.

Keeping college students on track toward graduation is just one of more than a dozen recommendations in the report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Postsecondary Educational Attainment.

The Legislature created the 15-member panel last year amid concerns that the state’s economy suffers from residents’ low rate of post-secondary education, a level the report calls “barely adequate at best.”

It links low educational attainment with Maine’s No. 37 national ranking in personal income.

The federal Education Department calls Maine’s high school graduation rate of 94.5 percent the best in the nation.

But census figures show the number of Maine residents over age 25 with at least a four-year degree amounted to 24.1 percent.

That is below the New England average of 30.8 percent and the national average of 26 percent.

The report’s primary recommendation is to create an independent Higher Education Attainment Council, which would set benchmarks and monitor progress toward getting more Mainers into post-high school education.

Although the council would be funded partially by private sources, it also seeks a legislative appropriation of $75,000 at a time when state finances are tight.

The draft report, surfacing just a day after President Bush signed a bill to improve the nation’s public schools, also says steps should be taken to start students thinking about careers and college earlier.

Rather than starting to consider college when they are in the 11th grade, students should be encouraged to think about their higher education while they are in grade school, said Cathcart.

The report says more adult workers should be encouraged to complete post-secondary education because Maine industries will need more highly skilled employees.

One in five of the Maine businesses surveyed by the Maine Development Foundation already are recruiting out of state.

To help traditional as well as adult students pay for college, new or expanded loan forgiveness, tuition reimbursement and other financial assistance programs should be considered, the report says.

It also calls for a doubling of the Maine Student Grant program within five years.

Assistance programs also can be used as incentives to keep graduates in the state, especially those in fields in which specially trained workers are needed, the document says.

Among the other recommendations are tax credits for graduates from Maine schools who stay in the state, and tax incentives for employers who support tuition reimbursements.