Neighborhood faculty leaders in Maine are fielding a surge of calls, emails and functions from potential college students following the launch of a free neighborhood faculty program focused at college students within the state who graduated highschool throughout the pandemic.
“We’re simply overwhelmed with work proper now due to this program, nevertheless it’s fantastic work,” stated Joseph Cassidy, president of Southern Maine Neighborhood Faculty. “And individuals are completely satisfied to see that they are assembly college students and so they’re getting them into the pipeline.”
He stated so many college students are calling, emailing and making use of via the school’s web site that admissions and advising employees are struggling to maintain up.
“Our individuals are exhausted and dealing actually exhausting, nevertheless it’s actually optimistic,” Cassidy stated.
This system, which matches into impact this summer season as college students apply for the autumn, will cowl two years of tuition at Maine neighborhood faculties for anybody who graduated or is scheduled to graduate highschool in 2020, 2021, 2022 or 2023, together with present neighborhood faculty college students and college students who earned a GED. Tuition and charges at state’s seven neighborhood faculties prices $3,700 on common. This system will cowl any prices not lined by state and federal monetary support or different scholarships. Members should be full-time college students in an affiliate diploma or one-year credential program and stay in Maine whereas enrolled to qualify.
Governor Janet Mills, who initially proposed this system, signed a supplemental state price range in April that included $20 million in one-time funding to create this system. The funds turn out to be accessible subsequent month.
“With the sturdy bipartisan assist of the Legislature, we’re making certain that top faculty college students whose aspirations for greater training had been impacted by the pandemic have the chance to get a tuition free training and enter Maine’s workforce with a dependable, good-paying, and in -demand jobs,” Mills stated in a press launch. An estimated 8,000 individuals within the state could possibly be eligible for this system, in response to the discharge.
Doug Ross, co-founder of the Marketing campaign for Free Faculty Tuition, stated statewide free faculty packages have grown in reputation because the pandemic. For instance, Michigan launched Futures for Frontliners, a free faculty program for individuals working in face-to-face jobs throughout the pandemic, and Michigan Reconnect, the same program for older adults with out levels in 2021. He believes free faculty packages are proliferating as a result of industries are going through acute worker shortages and states have extra funding to begin these packages as a consequence of federal COVID-19 reduction cash.
The pandemic “lent some further power to the tuition-free motion,” stated Ross, who’s additionally companion on the Diploma Fairness Undertaking and served as senior adviser for prosperity beneath Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. The mix of an inflow of funding and the necessity for expert staff “has form of been a wind in the back of this motion.”
David Daigler, president of the Maine Neighborhood Faculty System, stated the pandemic has been “extremely uneven and unfair,” widening monetary disparities between low-income and higher-income households nationally and within the state. He believes the state program may help shut these gaps as low-income college students earn levels, and finally, greater wages.
Low-income highschool graduates within the state are growing taking jobs as an alternative of going straight to school, a pattern exacerbated by the pandemic, however “a scholar wants abilities, coaching, training” with the intention to “to get traction on this financial system,” he stated.
“They will exit and get an … $18-an-hour job pushing espresso throughout the counter at Dunkin Donuts, however they aren’t going to get the abilities they should transfer themselves forward,” Daigler stated. “And the 18-year-old who decides to try this and would not get any training or any technical abilities goes to be a 28-year-old who has no place to go within the financial system.”
“If this opens the door and will get these college students engaged and excited about faculty, it’s going to be the perfect factor for Maine, the perfect factor for our financial system,” he added.
If the surge in curiosity is any indication, that message is outwardly getting out.
“The amount of communication that we’re getting from the households of current graduates and this 12 months’s graduates has actually, actually spiked,” Cassidy stated. “We’re seeing numerous college students come ahead and say, ‘You recognize, I used to be going to work this 12 months, I used to be going to do a spot 12 months,’ however they determined with this funding from the state, they are going to reap the benefits of it.”
The rise in functions is a welcome change of tempo for Southern Maine Neighborhood Faculty and others which have skilled enrollment declines. Enrollment at Southern Maine fell at the least 15 p.c between fall 2020 and fall 2022.
Cassidy considers this system “an unimaginable alternative for households in Maine,” however he hopes and expects this system to additionally enhance enrollment.
“We’re within the enterprise of working with nice college students, younger and previous, and the extra of them which might be right here, the happier we’re,” he stated.
Andrew Morong, affiliate dean of enrollment administration at Central Maine Neighborhood Faculty, stated the variety of new college students who’ve registered on the faculty and put down deposits rose about 20 p.c in comparison with this time final 12 months. Demand for campus excursions shot up because the program was introduced, and lots of of individuals got here to data classes about this system. He is hopeful the school can quickly return to its peak enrollment of roughly 3,200 college students in fall 2019.
“I believe this free faculty scholarship is, no pun supposed, the shot within the arm that we wanted,” he stated.
Daigler believes getting these highschool graduates into faculty can have ripple results on the state’s financial system. Nationally, and particularly in Maine, staff are getting old out of the labor pressure at excessive charges. The median age in Maine, virtually 45 years previous, is greater than another state within the nation, in response to the US Census Bureau. He famous that some neighborhood faculty leaders and state lawmakers are specializing in funding and a spotlight on re-enrolling older adults who left faculty with out incomes levels, which he additionally views as crucial, however he desires to make sure this technology of highschool college students whose lives had been disrupted by the pandemic do not get misplaced from the skilled workforce pipeline.
“There are extra individuals getting old out of the workforce than are coming into the workforce,” he stated. “So, if we lose the highschool senior and they do not get these abilities earlier of their profession, all the financial system loses. The earlier we are able to get that 18-year-old into our classroom, the earlier we are able to flip them right into a productive member of the workforce.”
He famous that failing to enroll these highschool graduates may have long-term penalties for college students from low-income households.
“And if they do not get coaching, they do not get training, they do not get a ability that helps elevate them out of poverty, their subsequent technology might be caught in that very same cycle of poverty,” Daigler stated.
He and different neighborhood faculty leaders hope the one-time tuition program convinces state lawmakers that Maine would profit from a broader and everlasting free faculty program.
“If it is wildly profitable, I believe there is a significant coverage dialog to have with the Legislature,” he stated. “We’ll have an indication … that hopefully says this has worth and that is why we should always proceed it.”
