Anonymous donor to fund seniors’ college applications

BATH – Thanks to a $17,000 gift from an anonymous donor, every senior at Morse High School next year will have the money for a college application, making it the latest Maine school to mandate or strongly encourage postsecondary school applications.

School Superintendent William Shuttleworth said the funds would enable each of the 170 seniors who are expected to graduate in 2008 to apply to at least one college.

“We will work with all of our seniors, in concert with guidance [counselors], to do everything we can to have 100 percent participation on a voluntary basis,” Shuttleworth said. “Unfortunately, some kids don’t see themselves as college material until they get that extra push. We hope this provides the push.”

Schools in Maine and other states are doing more to encourage students to at least consider college. Poland Regional High School’s requirement that seniors apply to at least one college has increased the school’s rate of college-bound seniors.

In the State House, a bill reviewed Tuesday by the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee would require Maine high school students to complete an application for college or other postsecondary training as a condition of graduation.

House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said he believes Maine is the only state considering legislation such as his, based on a review by the National Conference of State Legislatures, although a number of individual schools in other states have similar requirements. “This may be groundbreaking,” he said.

Cummings, who graduated from Morse High, said his own prospects for attending college were unclear given his family’s modest means. The Ohio Wesleyan University graduate said his bill addresses “the implicit danger of nonexpectation.”

Cummings acknowledged that some high school students set goals of joining the military after graduation. He said he is open to including military applications under his proposed graduation requirement.

Henry Bourgeois of the Maine Compact for Higher Education and Poland Regional Principal Bill Doughty were among those who spoke in favor of the bill. Also testifying in favor was Casco Bay High School Principal Derek Pierce, who oversaw the implementation of the policy while he was principal of Poland Regional.

Bourgeois said that Maine lags behind the New England average of high school seniors going on to higher education.