Maine's golden opportunity - Bangor Daily News

Rob Brown is the Executive Director of Opportunity Maine. He lives in Stockton Springs.

I urge all Mainers to look for and sign the petitions to place the Opportunity Maine initiative on the ballot, and I thank the Bangor Daily News and columnist and political economist John Buell for their recent commentaries encouraging the same.

This initiative will make higher education more affordable for all Mainers, keep our degree earners in the state after they graduate and cultivate the skilled work force we need for strong economic growth.

At one time, a high school diploma and our Yankee work ethic was the ticket to a secure, middle-class life in Maine. This is no longer the case, however. In today’s economy, most people need a post-high school degree to ensure a life of economic opportunity and security.

For a number of reasons, Maine is falling behind the rest of New England in this respect. Good jobs in manufacturing and natural-resource based industries are steadily leaving Maine, leaving behind broad and deep pockets of unemployment and poverty. According to the new report "Charting Maine’s Future" by the Brookings Institution, Maine’s population growth in recent years has accelerated faster than any other state, but many young people, including roughly half of our recent college graduates, are leaving out of economic necessity. Maine has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country, yet our workers are 30 percent less likely to have post-high school degrees than workers in New England as a whole, and our average income is 30 percent below the New England average.

A generation ago, student debt was minimal or nonexistent. Today, the average graduate in Maine is starting off, or starting again, with $25,000 in debt, a mortgage on their future that has perverse effects on life and career choices. Rising education costs have dramatically outpaced inflation and, with mounting student debt and continued cuts in federal support, have effectively become a regressive tax for many.

Lack of educational opportunity and the resulting drag on economic growth is throttling Maine’s economy and we are all paying the price. The best way to break this cycle is through education- a proven and effective driver of job, wage and economic growth.

This is why Opportunity Maine, a group of student and community leaders from around the state, has launched a campaign to expand educational opportunity and create higher paying jobs throughout Maine. We are recruiting volunteers to collect signatures this fall, particularly at the polls on Election Day, for a referendum next year.

Our plan will allow any Maine resident who earns an associate’s or bachelor’s degree here to claim an income tax credit to help pay down their student debt, so long as they continue to live and work in Maine after graduation. This tax credit would also be available to Maine businesses that make their employees’ educational loan payments, allowing a substantial benefit to current and future workers and providing a strong incentive for the development and attraction of new businesses.

Only graduates who live and work in Maine can claim this benefit. It will provide a boost to all those who want to further their education- from young people to laid-off workers seeking new training to adults pursuing higher-paying careers. This type of citizen-centered economic development will sustain our growing manufacturing and information design and service sectors, and provide further support for Maine’s burgeoning creative economy.

Businesspeople, economists and academics agree that the education level of a work force is one of the top considerations for businesses deciding where to locate. Bill Gates has said that if public officials want to bring the jobs of the 21st century to their state, the number one thing they need to do is invest in education. In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. John Fitzsimmons, president of the Maine Community College System, identified more than 4,200 good jobs recently that either went unfilled or were filled with out-of-state recruits because Maine could not provide enough workers with the needed skills.

Education is one of the most equitable public investments we can make and it pays the most dividends, since the average bachelor’s degree holder in Maine earns nearly $15,000 more than those with only a high school diploma, and associate’s degree holders earn nearly $9,000 more. Because of this, even by conservative estimates, this initiative will create a net gain in tax revenues of roughly $30 million a year within a decade, because of increased incomes and positive economic ripple effects.

Many lawmakers and civic, education, business and labor leaders are enthusiastically supporting the Opportunity Maine Campaign. Perhaps more important is that we have energized young people in Maine to become engaged in the effort, belying their usual characterization as apathetic and disengaged. They have been moved to action because they understand the difficulty of the problem, despite the fact that this initiative will not benefit them directly, as it is not retroactive.

The Opportunity Maine Campaign will benefit all Maine families by raising wages and giving our children the choice to stay in their home state after they graduate. And all Maine taxpayers will benefit from improving the economy of the great state of Maine.

Opportunity Maine believes that opening the doors of educational and economic opportunity for Maine people is a process that needs to begin now. If you agree with us and can spend a few hours making this vision a reality, please contact us at www.opportunitymaine.org or 567-3074.

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Affordable education in Maine’s future? - Bangor Daily News

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net

It is not surprising that recent state elections have focused on the issue of expanding economic opportunity for Maine citizens. Maine’s economy, like the nation’s, has seen its fair share of cyclical trends, but over the last generation Maine has lost a disproportionate number of high-paying manufacturing jobs. Neither manufacturing nor natural resource industries can be expected to carry the burden of future growth. What strategies can Maine employ to foster sustainable growth and to preserve our quality of community life?

Strengthening our human capital, the educational resources of our work force, becomes all the more imperative. A coalition of Maine students, workers and social activists, united under the banner of Opportunity Maine, is seeking signatures for a 2007 citizens’ initiative on higher education This initiative proposes a tax credit to repay tuition costs for those who remain in Maine after graduation. The proposal not only opens a needed debate about state economic development but also may have positive spillover effects on the broader tone and nature of our politics.

Though it is a mantra of much of the business establishment that low taxes drive economic development, most of the scholarly literature shows that the education of the work force is a larger factor in business location decisions. When it comes to worker education, Maine is doing some things right. The state has the highest high school graduation rate in the country. That fact reflects the importance Maine citizens attribute to education and a broad citizen commitment — however imperfectly executed in practice — to equalize educational resources.

Yet Maine’s success at the high school level highlights its greatest educational failure. We have the lowest rate of post-high school degree attainment in New England. Maine workers are 30 percent less likely to have post-high school degrees than workers in New England as a whole, and their average income is 30 percent below the New England average.

The state’s dismal post-secondary school record is not a consequence of the poor preparation of Maine students or their lack of hard work. The relative decline in Maine incomes, the growing cost of higher education, and declining levels of federal support make higher education unaffordable for too many poor and working-class families.

Maine problems are compounded because its low-wage economy forces many of those who do obtain their bachelor’s or associate degrees to leave the state in order to pay off their tuition debts. Maine is caught in a vicious circle. It can’t attract many of the best jobs because too many of its educated workers seek greener pastures elsewhere; and because it offers fewer opportunities to recent graduates, they must move. Much of what the state invests in higher education ends up fostering economic development elsewhere.

A program like that being promoted by Opportunity Maine would start to break the vicious circle. Since Maine lags so far behind its rival New England states in post-secondary education, it could reasonably anticipate large gains over a five- to 10-year period from a program that would make education more affordable and lure more college graduates to remain in the state. These graduates would in turn pay taxes to the state. Even under conservative assumptions such a program could be expected to pay for itself in less than a decade.

Opportunity Maine’s initiative petition reminds me of an earlier piece of very successful federal policy, the GI Bill. Political scientist Theda Skocpol points out in "The Missing Middle" that Americans do and will support government programs when they speak to widely recognized social needs and grow out of broadly based political movements.

Among other things the GI Bill made it easier for a generation of returning veterans to attend college, an accomplishment that would have been beyond the reach of many working-class soldiers of that generation. That generation’s educational attainments combined with expansive commitments to rebuild housing and transportation after the war contributed to both a demand for and supply of productive workers.

Opportunity Maine speaks to a significant state need and has already attracted the interest of a wide spectrum of the business and labor community. One of its most desirable spillover effects may be that it also attracts the effort and enthusiasm of young adults, those 18- to 25-year-olds who historically have had relatively low levels of participation in the political process. This initiative is not a panacea.

In the long run, economic development also requires more attention to Maine’s energy and transportation infrastructures, livable wages that help sustain high levels of demand, and efforts to foster the best business practices. Nonetheless, this initiative could both increase opportunities in the next decade and demonstrate the role that democratic activism and citizen initiatives can play in enactment of sound public policies needed to sustain a healthy private sector.

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College Opportunity

Bangor Daily News editorial

A group called Opportunity Maine has a good idea in the form of a proposal to build a citizen's initiative to highlight the importance of going to college. Whether its specific proposal - a tax credit to repay tuition costs for those who remain in Maine after graduating - is the best way to improve this part of Maine life can be determined during the campaign. For now, it's enough that the group is taking its idea on the road.

The campaign begins with an undeniable set of facts: Maine has a college-degree rate significantly lower than the region's average. College degrees are crucial to expanding the knowledge economy that Maine must participate in to thrive. Even after all the scholarships, grants and other discounts, tuition costs are one important reason that more students do not begin or complete their college degrees and may not be able to afford to stay in Maine upon graduation.

The citizen's initiative is designed to reward college graduates - associate or bachelor's degree - for working and staying in Maine after graduation. The group plans to gather all of its signatures in the next several months, and along the way describe the economic benefits of raising the number of college graduates in Maine - for starters, they point out the 2004 median additional income for a four-year degree over a high-school diploma was $14,880; for an individual with an associate's degree, $8,928. It also argues that the idea could help workers who need job re-training but are worried about the cost.

According to economic analyses performed for Opportunity Maine, the public cost of the tuition tax credit would be more than equaled by added tax revenues from higher incomes in just four years, and the entire program could quickly become a net gain for state and local government. In addition, having more college graduates available to work would attract more businesses to the state, increasing opportunity for all residents.

Most states have college-loan forgiveness programs - gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill, for instance, is advocating that Maine adopt an Indiana plan begun there in 1990, in which seventh- and eighth-graders sign a pledge that starts them and their families on a path to college in exchange for eight semesters of tuition at state-university prices. Whether the Opportunity Maine program or one similar to Indiana's or something else is the best choice for sharply increasing the number of college graduates remains to be seen.

But one way to find out is to look at the citizen's initiative as an informational campaign, one that should involve the public, educators and economists to compare the many options available to Maine. The only way to have that campaign is to support Opportunity Maine as it gathers signatures and discusses the benefits of Maine spending more money on tuition breaks for state residents.

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Tax credit proposed for student loans - Waterville Morning Sentinel

by Jerry Harkavey

PORTLAND -- A student-led group Tuesday announced a campaign to initiate legislation that would provide state income tax credits to offset student loans to graduates of Maine colleges or universities who stay and work in the state.

Opportunity Maine said it will soon begin to gather the roughly 50,500 voter signatures needed to place the question on the statewide referendum ballot in November 2007.

Backers of the initiative said it would help Mainers meet the rising costs of higher education and enhance the state's economic prospects by enabling more graduates to work in their home state.

"I have spoken to so many other students who are struggling with the increasing cost of education and who have to look out of state for a job that can help them pay their student loans -- even if they want to say and work in Maine," said Andrew Bossie, president of the University of Southern Maine student body and president of Opportunity Maine.

The proposal was detailed at a news conference at Lewiston-Auburn College.

The amount eligible for tax credits would be capped at the cost of tuition and fees for the University of Maine System or the Maine Community College System. Thus, credits for graduates of Maine's more expensive private colleges may cover only a portion of their loans.

Under the proposal, employers would have the option of paying the student loans of an employee and taking the tax credit for their business.

While programs elsewhere have been targeted at specific occupations such as teachers, nurses and doctors, campaign director Rob Brown said "no other state is doing anything nearly this universal."

Nearly half of all college graduates in Maine leave the state after they get their degrees, Brown said, and one of the primary reasons is the inability to land a job that provides a high enough salary to pay off student loans.

Opportunity Maine made an informal presentation to the University of Maine System trustees last weekend, and the chancellor and trustees were interested, said John Diamond, university system spokesman.

A formal presentation will be made in November or January, at which time trustees will consider endorsing the proposal.

"The idea of expanding education and affordability is something that the board is wanting to do with its own agenda. That's why they'd like to get more information about the specifics of the students' proposal before they take a formal stand," Diamond said.

The initiative, which has drawn support from labor unions and chambers of commerce, was rooted in discussions among student leaders that began last November, Brown said.

They decided to bypass the Legislature and launch a petition campaign in order to promote sustained public debate on the issue, he said. Because an educated work force is a key element in economic development, he suggested that the discussion could prompt businesses to look at Maine as a potential site to locate or expand their operations.

Other measures to provide financial help with student loans have gone before the Legislature but either died in committee or on the floor, or were passed but did not receive funding, he said.

Opportunity Maine has projected that its proposal would generate more than $80 million in increased tax revenue and spillover economic benefits by the 10th year. Annual costs to the state would run several million dollars during each of the first few years, but there would be a net gain as more people enter the work force, the group said.

The group projected that the legislation would enable an additional 25,500 Mainers to earn degrees over the 10 years, boosting their earnings by an average of at least 15 percent.

"By making education affordable to students and laid-off workers, Maine will entice the type of industry that is critical to a sustainable economy," Bossie said.

Organizers planned to seek 1,200 volunteers, including students, parents and teachers, to gather signatures at polling places on Nov. 7.

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Ballot initiative takes on student debt - Lewiston Sun Journal

by David Farmer

LEWISTON - A college education comes with the prospect of a good job and a brighter future. For many students, it also comes with thousands of dollars of debt.

A student-led organization launched a campaign Tuesday that will attempt to bend the state's tax code into helping Mainers afford higher education.

Called Opportunity Maine, the campaign is pushing a ballot initiative that would create a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for student loan payments.

"This is an initiative that's going to make it easier for all people in Maine to pursue higher education and continue their education," said Andrew Bossie, the president of Opportunity Maine and the student body president at the University of Southern Maine.

Lisa Bazinet of Auburn is a nontraditional student who graduated in May with a bachelor's degree and $25,000 of debt.

"Four years ago, I found myself single with two small children and decided I needed to enter the work force again," Bazinet said. "My biggest fear was financial. How was I going to be able to put myself through school."

Bazinet, who spoke at L-A College on Tuesday, said she took every student loan she could and struggled through. "Now I have this debt."

"When my children are old enough to go to college, how am I going to pay for that?"

According to the legislation submitted to the secretary of state by Opportunity Maine, the program would be available to any Maine resident who earns an associate or bachelor's degree in the state and then continues to live, work and pay taxes here after graduation. The tax credit would also be available to employers who agree to repay an employees' student loans.

"A number of issues play into this idea," said Rob Brown, Opportunity Maine's campaign director. "We have a low rate of people going to college and of those who do, about half leave the state after they graduate."

"We're focusing on the need to alleviate student debt, which has a huge impact on the choices people make, like whether to stay in Maine after they graduate," Brown said.

The group estimates that the tax credits would cost about $3.4 million its first year, Bossie said.

The program is not retroactive and would only apply to students in school at the time the initiative becomes law.

Over 10 years, the cost projection is about $53 million. But, Brown said, that is more than offset by increased revenue that the program should bring into the state.

Citing figures that a person with a college degree can expect to earn at least 15 percent more than a person with only a high school diploma, Brown said the tax credits will produce a positive economic impact for the state of about $82 million by its 10th year, for a net gain of about $30 million for the state.

"We see this, first and foremost, as economic development through education," Brown said.

The tax credit would have a yearly cap, which would be based on the price of tuition at the University of Maine and any mandatory fees for people seeking a bachelor's degree and on tuition and fees at the state's community college system for an associate's degree.

For this year, the credit would be capped at about $2,100, Bossie said.

That amount would not be refundable if it exceeds a person's state tax burden, but any unused credit could be rolled over into the next tax year, Brown said.

"Maine currently lags 30 percent behind the New England average in an education work force. We are 30 percent behind the New England average for income," Bossie said. "Education and income are linked."

Opportunity Maine organized as a political action committee in April. Since then, it has filed two financial disclosure reports with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. So far, Opportunity Maine has reported $29,685 in in-kind contributions, primarily from two people. The group reports that Clifford Ginn and Justin Alfond, both of Portland, have each contributed $14,812.50 to the group to pay for polling and political research.

The language of the legislation has been approved by the secretary of state, said Doug Dunbar, a spokesman for the office. A final question will be provided by the secretary of state by Sept. 19.

Opportunity Maine is looking for 1,200 volunteers to collect 50,519 signatures necessary to get the question on the ballot. To appear in November 2007, the signatures must be received by the secretary of state by Jan. 25.

"There's a lot of energy around this year's campaign and the debate going on about education and the economy," Brown said. Opportunity Maine hopes to capitalize on that by collecting most of the required signatures on Election Day.

"It gives us an opportunity to put another idea out there on the table that we think is quite bold and innovative," Brown said. "We'd be the first state in the nation to do this."

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Plan stems flight of graduates - Portland Press Herald

by Beth Quimby

LEWISTON - Maine-educated college students who agree to stay in Maine after they graduate would get tax credits on their college loans under a proposal being pushed by a group of Maine students.

The group, Opportunity Maine, began a petition drive on Tuesday to gather the required 50,519 signatures from registered voters by Jan. 25 to put their proposal on the November 2007 ballot.

Proponents said the measure is designed to boost the number of college graduates in the state by easing the financial pain of getting a degree. They also hope to raise Maine's average income, which lags those of other New England states, and reverse the so-called "brain drain" that results in 50 percent of the state's college graduates leaving Maine for work.

"It's not just about college but about jobs," said Andrew Bossie, student body president at the University of Southern Maine and president of Opportunity Maine.

But some tax policy experts said that it is unclear whether the measure would bring about its intended goals, and that it could create an unfair playing field for new out-of-state college graduates who want to move to Maine.

Under the measure, any Maine resident who earned an associate's or bachelor's degree at a Maine college or university and signed an agreement with the state could get a tax credit for college loan payments for each year that person lives and works in Maine.

The tax credit would also be available to the person's employer, should the employer pick up the employee's college loans. The amount would be capped at the cost of tuition and mandatory fees for a bachelor's degree in the University of Maine System. That works out to about a $2,100-a-year tax credit at present prices, Bossie said.

The average debt of students who graduate from Maine public universities is about $21,000, said Rob Brown, campaign director. Brown said the tax impact of the proposed measure is still being worked out by his group.

But, he said, an initial analysis shows the state could lose about $3.4 million in revenue because of the credits, which he said would be offset by additional income tax paid by residents who are added to the Maine's tax rolls rather than some other state's.

The measure is the brainchild of a bipartisan group of students and others who spent the past year meeting with students, educators, legislators and business people. Brown said it is unique to Maine, although other states have used similar measures to lure health care workers or other highly skilled workers to underserved areas.

Tax policy specialists gave the proposal mixed reviews. State Rep. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth and chairman of the Legislature's Taxation Committee, said he did not know whether the loss of tax revenue from the credits would be offset by taxes generated by the retention of more Maine-educated college graduates in the state. But he called the proposal intriguing.

"It is addressing two of the really big challenges we have identified Maine needs to work on: encouraging more of our high school graduates to go on to college, and keeping our highest-skilled young people in Maine," Woodbury said.

He said he provided some advice to Opportunity Maine but is not affiliated with the group.

Rep. Harry Clough, R-Scarborough, said the issue is too complex to put before voters in a referendum. He said Opportunity Maine should have approached a member of the Taxation Committee to sponsor the bill.

"It deserves a full and fair hearing to find out the ramifications," he said. "There are a lot of people involved in it and it deserves a complete hearing."

Rep. Herbert Clark, the ranking Democrat on the Taxation Committee, gave the proposal a thumbs-up, even if it results in some lost tax revenue.

"It is a good idea, a creative idea. A tax credit would be a step in the right direction of many steps to help our kids stay here," he said.

Charles Colgan, professor of public policy and management at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service, said the proposal has positives and negatives.

He said a $2,100 tax credit would significantly lower the state income taxes paid by most recent college graduates in Maine. The measure could also entice more students to attend college in Maine.

But Colgan said the proposal could wind up benefiting people who were planning to stay in Maine after college graduation anyway. And he said it would do little to entice highly paid college graduates, such as those in engineering and computer science, who can fetch salaries as much as 50 percent more in some metropolitan areas outside of Maine.

Colgan also said the measure would be unfair to students who attend college outside of Maine but would like to live in Maine.

Students who spoke at Tuesday's news conference said their lives would have been transformed by the measure. Leah Malave of Greenbush said she never considered college after high school, but when she found herself at age 30 as a single mother of two sons, she went to college out of economic necessity.

She now holds associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees in criminal justice from the University of Maine System. But she said she is also $50,000 in debt and she wonders how she will ever pay off her loans.

"I have a son in high school and I won't be able to financially help him" in college, she said.

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They Aim to Stay in Maine

Brunswick Times editorial


With all the hand-wringing about keeping our young adults here in the state, the degree of their engagement in the political process is cause for hope.

Maine's young people, ages 18 to 29, were fifth in the nation in the 2004 election with an impressive 59 percent voter turnout, The Associated Press reports. This is according to a study done by the University of Maryland's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). Maine's youth voter turn-out is always higher than the national average, too.

What's more, on Monday, student leaders from Maine colleges an-nounced they have formed a political action committee called Opportunity Maine to spearhead an unprecedented ballot initiative that will help them stay in Maine after they graduate.

Opportunity Maine supporters will gather more than 60,000 signatures to put a referendum question in the November 2007 election. It proposes to offer students a tax credit equal to their student loans.

To qualify, students attending a Maine community college or university would have to stay and work in Maine upon graduation. Another option under the law would be for employers to pay their employees' student loans and claim the tax credit for their businesses.

A key reason Maine college graduates must look out of state for employment is the increasing cost of education and resulting burden of student loans. Add that to the cost of living, and their hands are tied.

Opportunity Maine has submitted legislation titled "An Act to Create Jobs by Expanding Educational Opportunity for Maine People," having garnered support "from hundreds of students and business and labor leaders in every region of Maine."

"By making education more affordable for students and laid-off workers, Maine will entice the type of industry that is critical to a sustainable economy," said Andrew Bossie, student body president at the University of Southern Maine and president of Opportunity Maine, in a press release.

We commend these young people for taking matters into their owns hands and trying to solve one of the state's most vexing concerns.

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