By ANNA FIORENTINO, Staff Writer

They turned their backs on bureaucracy, closed their eyes to failure and took a free fall into the political abyss.

College debt had officially driven one group of young people over the edge. But letting go may have been just what they needed to get themselves out of it.

“When we took the plunge, there were 400 people there to catch our fall,” said field director for the League of Young Voters Alec Maybarduk, 24.

It enabled a statewide grass-roots campaign that taught them that like civic minds can make a difference.

They called it Opportunity Maine.

It is a ballot initiative different from others. Developed by young people and lawmakers alike, Opportunity Maine allows any student who earns an associate or bachelor’s degree at a Maine college to claim a tax credit equal to his or her student loan payments (capped at the level of tuition and fees for the UMaine System or the Maine Community College System), if they remain a resident of Maine. If a student moves out of state they are no longer eligible. With the intent to generate higher-paying jobs, create a larger, more-educated work force and give the economy a big old boost, the program would also enable an employer to assume a student’s loan payments and then claim the tax credit themselves.

“Leading up to the campaign, college was becoming more expensive. Tuition was going up, and the income levels in Maine weren’t,” said Andy Bossie, University of Southern Maine student body president, who was also part of the that original core group that helped launch the Opportunity Maine initiative. “I know a lot of people who have dropped out of college because they couldn’t afford it anymore.”

So last fall, Bossie, 23, helped present findings by the Public Interest Research Groups to the University of Maine System student body. He told them the average student debt increased from about $9,000 to $19,000 between 1993 and 2004 nationally.

Conversations about increased college tuition costs began to spread to other colleges across the state, then to the business community and finally into the public domain.

There was one common denominator among all ages and backgrounds: Everyone was concerned about the impact increased college costs were having on Maine’s economy.

The students realized they weren’t alone in their financial morass.

The word spread to lawmakers. Organizers drafted a ballot initiative and began to circulate a petition.

They had five months from the date of issuance of the initiative to collect an estimated 60,000 signatures to support the 2007 Opportunity Maine ballot referendum.

Finally, last Thursday Bossie and his comrades filled a van from floor to ceiling with boxes of signature sheets, drove up to Augusta, and officially filed them with the state.

And just like that, Opportunity Maine is out of their hands.

Now they wait to see if their final signature count hit the mark; the official results will come out in about a month.

“We needed exactly 55,182,” Bossie said with a smile. “We’re cautiously optimistic.”

And so they wait. They rest. And for the first time ever, they looked at their campaign trail in retrospect.

Last week, from the student government offices at the University of Southern Maine Bossie, Maybarduk and the campaign’s volunteer public relations manager Tony Giampetruzzi attributed their renewed faith in the political process to those volunteers who rose up to push for an alternative to college debt.

Admittedly a bit haggard, they explained their strategy for a very nontraditional referendum campaign to educate very nontraditional supporters.

“We had an 80-year-old collecting signatures. We had a single mom in her 30s take her two kids (ages 2 and 4) to help sort petitions. We had a Harvard-educated student helping one day, then someone who got their GED the next,” said Bossie. “A lot of people who worked on the campaign won’t derive a direct benefit from it.”

That includes the college students vying for the initiative, as the proposal stipulates the tax credit only applies to those who enter college after Opportunity Maine passes.

Still, the volunteers collectively traveled to nearly every town hall in Maine, carrying with them one box filled with petitions, another with voter registration cards. About 400 volunteers spread across the most remote towns, and brought the campaign to the Web on sites like Facebook and MySpace. The League of Young Voters membership and young voter registration numbers increased substantially.

With a newfound respect for the geography of the state and its people, they went from camping out on the floors of fellow volunteers around the state to pulling all-nighters on the floor and couches at The League office on Pleasant Street in Portland where they began to count signatures.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But we became a growing family,” Bossie said. “Mainly, I realized people care about the betterment of the state. They selflessly dedicated their time and resources.”

Of course, getting the signatures submitted was only one step in the long referendum journey. “We go right back to work the day we find out the results,” said Giampetruzzi. “This is just the beginning.”

Staff Writer Anna Fiorentino can be contacted at 791-6330 or at: afiorentino@pressherald.com

Tax credits, funding needed to plug drain

Through the early 19th century, police would toss debtors into the local gulag for failing to make repayments. Though “debtors’ prisons” are now long gone, college students in Maine say the crushing debt for education is the fiscal equivalent of wrist shackles and leg irons.

Freeing students from financial bondage is the goal of Opportunity Maine, which seeks to put an educational tax credit question before state voters. In short, the program would reimburse tuition and fees for attending Maine’s public colleges through tax credits if the student stays, and works, in Maine.

The initiative was announced Tuesday at L-A College. Organizers say the program, with an estimated $3.4 million upfront cost, would return $30 million in 10years, through the economic contributions of college educated employees retained by the tax credits. These projections seem ambitious, and require scrutiny if the question makes the ballot.

The University of Maine this week also said it would ask for an additional $36 million from the state for a similar reason; Chancellor Terrence MacTaggart said the money would fund faculty raises and freeze tuition.

The aim is to plug the “brain drain,” he said, and keep talented high-schoolers in Maine for college.

One program to alleviate debt, one program to prevent it. Both deserve support, as evidenced by Maine’s wretched record of college costs. This month, Maine again earned an “F” in college affordability from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, its fourth flunking grade since 2000.

Maine has fared poorly in other studies as well.

Teachers who are public college graduates in Maine, for example, spend 39 percent of “discretionary” income to repay student loans, a national study said in April.

Private college graduates pay 55 percent. Both are nearly double the national averages, and mountainous hurdles for attracting, or keeping, qualified teachers.

Susan Gendron, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Education, told the Sun Journal recently that college costs are a national issue. She is correct, as 42 other states also failed college affordability in the study released this month. This quandary leaves room for creative, bold initiatives like Opportunity Maine to combat this dangerous trend.

And tax credits are common public policy, especially in economic development. Gov. John Baldacci’s Pine Tree Zone program, as an example, is basically a package of tax credits on payroll and personal property taxes for companies that invest in an eligible region. If businesses can reap tax credits for investing in Maine, so should college students. The state’s economy relies on both, a point accurately conveyed by Opportunity Maine.

“We see this as, first and foremost, as economic development through education,” said Rob Brown, campaign director for Opportunity Maine.

Solutions to making higher education more affordable in Maine must be found. High school and college graduates are leaving for better opportunities elsewhere.

Opportunity Maine seems to be a creative response for the future, while the additional funds for the University of Maine will ensure the quality of education available today.

Plugging the brain drain carries benefits for all Mainers, not just those in university classrooms.

Written by Jeffrey J. Williams
Federal student loans are a relatively new invention. The Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program only began in 1965, a branch of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs intended to provide supplemental aid to students who otherwise could not attend college or would have to work excessively while in school. In its first dozen years, the amounts borrowed were relatively small, in large part because a college education was comparatively inexpensive, especially at public universities.
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Kansas City Star Young
Adults today are feeling the deep impact of a shift from an industrial to a technology- and service-based economy, said Tamara Draut, director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a New York-based consumer think tank. They face higher costs in starting and sustaining families, building careers, finding affordable health coverage and growing assets, said Draut, author of “Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead.”
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This report looks at the issue of unmanageable debt as it pertains to college graduates entering two critical public service careers: teaching and social work. Given increasing dependence on student loans, borrowers graduating from four-year schools and working in these two public service careers often carry more debt than they can manage. The prospect of burdensome debt likely deters skilled and dedicated college graduates from entering and staying in important careers educating our nation’s children and helping the country’s most vulnerable populations.
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Written By Lawrence Gladieux and Laura Perna for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
This report examines the experiences of students who borrow to finance their education, but are unable to complete their postsecondary programs. Many of those who drop out – particularly lower-income students and first-generation college-goers – discover a year or two into college just how much they will face in student debt were they to stick it out and graduate. These students likely did not have role models for successful degree attainment and, therefore, are easily discouraged from finishing their degrees. As a result, they find themselves in the worst of all worlds – accumulated student debt with no degree to show for it.
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A Report of the Congressional Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance
America’s global competitiveness depends on the ability of our high school graduates to earn at least a bachelor’s degree. As in recent decades, financial barriers are a major factor in preventing large numbers of college-qualified students from earning a bachelor’s degree, particularly those from low- and moderate-income families. These bachelor’s degree losses are an unmistakable signal that our nation has yet to make the full investment in student aid necessary to secure our economic future—a dire warning that we are requiring millions of students to mortgage their future and ours as well.
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Written by Demos
In today’s knowledge-based economy, a college degree is a necessary qualification for entry to the middle class. Over the last 30 years, as real wages for workers with only a high school diploma have fallen, the life outcomes for those with college degrees have diverged from those with only high school degrees. In 1977, for example, there was only a 6 percentage-point difference in home ownership rates between those with college educations and those without. Today, there is a 20 percentage-point difference.
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Written by Phillip Trostel, Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy
This report suggests that public provision of education appears to provide incentives for human capital accumulation which are more efficient than any other feasible policy.
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Report by Brookings Institution and GrowSmart Maine
A major new study says Maine is poised for an era of dynamic growth-if we can pull ourselves together, make smart investments and stick with them over time.
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