This fall, I was fortunate to be a member of the Presiding Officers’ Task Force on Creating a Future for Maine’s Youth. As a group, we developed recommendations to make Maine more attractive to youth and provide them with incentives to make their choice to live and work here easier.

It’s no secret that Maine’s per capita income is below the national average. Nor is it a secret that our cost of living is similarly below the national average. Under normal circumstances, the two indicators balance out. The challenge for young college graduates wishing to locate here is one of fixed costs – if students leave university saddled with $20,000 in debt, that debt is $20,000 whether they choose to settle in high-income California or in low- income Maine. There is an obvious disadvantage to choose Maine because of the need to earn enough to pay the fixed cost of loans.

The task force found that the best way to overcome this disadvantage is a program called loan repayment. If our goal is to increase the number of young college graduates in the work force, it only makes sense to target higher-education assistance to (drum roll, please…) young college graduates in the work force. Under a repayment program, for each year they work in Maine, the state would pay off part of their college debt.

While Maine already has many “loan forgiveness” programs, the task force found that repayment programs would be more effective. Forgiveness programs offer loans to students entering college with the promise of forgiving them if the student commits to stay in Maine to work after graduation. They require the state to appropriate funds years in advance with the hope that they will yield the desired result – a young, educated employee for Maine’s work force. By contrast, repayment programs would provide a 100 percent return on investment because money would only be spent on those already in the work force. Thus repayment programs would be a more efficient expenditure in tight fiscal times.

As a result of the task force’s efforts, I am sponsoring two pieces of legislation. The first establishes the “Future for Youth in Maine Loan Repayment Program” to recruit and retain college graduates who start technology-based businesses or work in occupations facing labor shortages. The program provides repayment of up to $5,000 a year for a maximum of four years.

The second directs the Finance Authority of Maine and the Department of Education to develop a plan to reorganize current forgiveness programs into repayment programs to better meet the needs of Maine employers and the Maine economy. The plan will be submitted to the First Regular Session of the 122nd Legislature.

It’s no secret that Maine’s many obvious economic disadvantages have led to a massive outmigration of young people from our state. No longer should it be a secret that Maine’s leaders are committed to confronting and overcoming these disadvantages. Passage of these two pieces of legislation will represent a small but tangible first step in the long journey toward creating a future for youth in Maine.

Rep. Jeremy Fischer, of Presque Isle, is a member of the Presiding Officers’ Task Force on Creating a Future for Maine’s Youth.