Monday, March 5, 2007

A proposal to give credit where credit is due - Portland Press Herald

by Justin Ellis

Remember that sweet moment just before college graduation, the one where you realize there's a payoff for all those years of work? The payoff is a regular paycheck -- a healthy one, nothing like the part-time allowance you pulled down while in school.

That joy and warm hug of bliss were fleeting because soon after that, you realized how much money you owed. Your parents, friends, school, bank and federal government were looking for their cash.

The Opportunity Maine initiative proposes to help out college students who stick around Maine after they graduate by providing a tax credit for college loan repayments. The amount of the tax credit 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. If you went to a private college in Maine, your tuition and fees would be a lot higher, but you'd only get up to the UMaine System cap.

But the group that launched the campaign must wait as the Legislature decides whether to green-light the proposal or pass it on for people around the state to vote on in November.

If it's going to become a reality, sponsors will need to explain how getting a college degree got so expensive and how exactly the tax credit would help out everyone else in the state, not just graduates.

Though the last statewide education referendum failed -- a request to borrow $9 million to fix up buildings and make improvements on state college campuses -- organizers with Opportunity Maine say they are optimistic.

"A lot of people know someone who is going to college," said Andrew Bossie, a senior at the University of Southern Maine and president of Opportunity Maine. "You don't have to be a college student, you can be a parent, you can be a grandparent, you could be a friend, to know someone who is going on to college and know that struggle to make tuition payments."

Bossie and others figure that's a lot of people, and if they reach out to enough of them, Opportunity Maine's plan would become law.

Last Monday, the group received word from the state that they had collected enough signatures to get the proposal on the state ballot in November. Here's how it would work: You (Maine resident) get a bachelor's or associate's degree at a school in Maine.

If you stay in the state and get a job after graduation, you get a tax credit to help make student loan payments. If so inclined, your company could pick up the cost of your loans and take the tax credit.

Aaron Pavao, a sophomore at Southern Maine Community College, said this campaign reaches out to everyone -- the students who are grinding away in college now, the people who are considering college, parents who have to pay and people who want to go back and get their degrees.

"To think that this kind of opportunity could benefit those people who haven't gone back to school yet, who are still just pounding away at $8-, $9-, $10-an-hour jobs just to support themselves and make a living off of what you make without having a college degree," he said.

Anna Korsen, a senior at USM working on the Opportunity Maine campaign, said the state's economy is not very promising to young people.

"There's this cycle, where people can't afford to go to college, then they can't afford to stay in Maine to work if they did go to college," she said. "Then there's no jobs here because there's no one who has an education to fill that job. It just goes around and around."

In that sense, with your debt just sitting and waiting, graduating seems like running head first into a wall of bricks. At least this way there would be an incentive, Korsen said.

Tony Giampetruzzi, communications director for Opportunity Maine, said there is a generational disconnect between students and recent graduates and people who have been out of college for a decade or more. The actual cost of going to college for students and their families -- with rising tuition, fees and textbook prices -- can be hard to understand, he said.

Giampetruzzi said Opportunity Maine would help the economy directly and indirectly. Graduates have an incentive to stay in state and businesses are encouraged to hire grads, or relocate here and grow where there is a highly educated workforce, he said.

Pavao said a little incentive will make all the difference in people's lives, especially when just getting by seems like a struggle.

"Each year the tuition goes up, it just gets a little more daunting to look at your paycheck at the end of the week and then look at how much it cost for each credit -- never mind a class -- and go, 'How the heck am I going to be able to work towards that,"' Pavao said.

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