AUGUSTA – A college transition program that helps students prepare for, pay for and succeed in the Maine Community College System is helping the state achieve its goal of getting more young people to continue their education, MCCS officials said this week.

More than 70 percent of the approximately 200 students who entered the Early College for ME program in the fall of 2003 and 2004 are either still enrolled, have graduated or have transferred to a four-year college, said Jean Mattimore, executive director of MCCS’ Center for Career Development.

Speaking to the Governor’s Community College Advisory Council at the MCCS office in Augusta on Monday, Mattimore alluded to concerns that boys haven’t been attending college in the same numbers as girls and said that Early College for ME is also helping to reverse that trend. Of the Early College students who entered MCCS since 2003, 54 percent – or 159 – have been males, she said.

Launched in 2002, the Early College for ME program is aimed at students who are undecided about college even though they have the academic potential. It offers pre-college testing and advising; early college courses during senior year; help with the college admissions and financial aid processes; up to $2,000 in community college scholarships; and support through the first, often tenuous, years of college.

Currently offered in 40 schools, Early College for ME serves about 750 high school and community college students. Next September, thanks to a $500,000 appropriation included in the state’s recently approved supplemental budget, another 30-35 high schools plan to offer the program, bringing the total number of students to about 1,250. Officials are planning to make the program available in all publicly funded schools by 2008.

MCCS President John Fitzsimmons said Early College for ME is helping to advance Gov. John Baldacci’s ambitious plan to raise the state’s college participation rate from 55 percent to 70 percent by 2010.

“Once it goes statewide, this program will be one of the major reasons Maine is able to hit that goal,” Fitzsimmons said Wednesday.

Mattimore also told the advisory council that more than half of the young men in the Early College for ME program – 52 percent – are first generation college students. The vast majority – 86 percent – have enrolled in career programs such as business and computer technology, including the traditional trades such as electrical technology, plumbing, automotive, construction and metal work.

Reporting more encouraging news, Mattimore said that of the young men who entered MCCS in either 2003 and 2004, 73 percent are either still enrolled, have graduated or transferred to a four-year college.

Devin Provencal of Skowhegan, a first-year student at Southern Maine Community College in Portland, was at the meeting to put a face on the statistics.

Without Early College for ME, “there’s no question, I wouldn’t have gone to college,” said Provencal, who is studying to be a plumber.

Although he could have joined the family plumbing business right after high school, the 2005 Skowhegan Area High School graduate said the counseling and support that he received through Early College for ME prompted him to further his education. His associate’s degree will put him on the fast track to becoming fully licensed as both a plumber and a boiler technician, he said.

“I’m definitely glad I made the choice I did. I’ve learned so much in the past six months. I made a lot of friends and got to see other points of view and learn different [plumbing] techniques.”

Fitzsimmons, who designed the Early College for ME program, pointed out that MCCS has had extensive experience working with Maine students who didn’t intend to go to college. By providing these young people – many of whom had parents who didn’t attend college – with academic counseling and by walking them through the college admissions and financial aid processes and offering them financial support, “we knew we could find a magical program that connected all the dots for this group of students,” he said.

Fitzsimmons said he was “gratified” that Gov. Baldacci also has seen that connection and realized it was “time to get that group of students into higher education.”

“That’s why he put $500,000 in the state budget to double the number of high schools next fall” that will be offering the program, Fitzsimmons said.

Early College for ME works to help students obtain a college degree, ultimately earn higher salaries, and propel students into a four-year program thanks to transfer agreements between MCCS and the University of Maine System, said Fitzsimmons.