Maine officials during the last 20 years have come up with all sorts of reasons to explain why more of the state’s high-school graduates haven’t gone to college. They weren’t prepared academically; they weren’t ready socially. Costs were too high; aspirations too low. Families weren’t encouraging enough. All or none of these could be true, but more important is this idea: In the last two years, as Maine’s technical colleges became its community colleges, enrollment in degree programs rose 38 percent and the increase of students coming directly from high school is up 79 percent.

Cost, access, expectation, preparedness are all rolled into these numbers, and no doubt lengthy studies could identify the influences of each, but the fact is that more Maine students want to begin their college careers at community college – more, in fact, than the colleges will be able to accept with their current resources. Last week, the system’s trustees addressed this by approving a request of a $5.1 million increase over the next two years, a rise of 6 percent in each year.

Some context is required. For the last six years, these colleges have kept their tuition unchanged, at $68 per credit, while remaking themselves from largely technical schools to colleges with a more professional orientation. The technical courses haven’t gone away; the schools have gotten more diverse. This is reflected in the colleges’ growing appeal to new high-school graduates. At the same time, the Community College System and the University of Maine System have worked together to remove the transfer barriers between them – a problem that has been talked about for years but only recently solved. In addition, 760 students, one student in 10, last spring were adult laid-off workers who needed to be quickly retrained to find new employment.

This double demand of freezing tuition and expanding services in several directions comes with a price. The seven colleges cannot go further without more funding for wages, health care, retirement and typical maintenance of their buildings. That demands the $5.1 million from the state. A second request, for just more than $1 million in each of the next two years would fund support staff for admissions, financial aid and for health and safety improvements.

The total request, of about $7.5 million, soon will go before the governor and the Legislature, and the observation will be made that the state has no spare money (if the Palesky tax cap passes, it will have less than none). This is true – except for the $5 billion it will spend on its budget. The question for lawmakers is if they approve of Maine having a community college system – and they wholeheartedly do – then what sacrifices are they willing to make to help pay for it?

The funding request will be pulled apart and examined closely during the session. It may change as lawmakers review each item. But the overall point of the request will not: Community colleges are doing what Maine has said for 20 years it has wanted to do. The Legislature’s job now is make sure it doesn’t need to stop.