The final batch of departing seniors to get free tuition at state community colleges
This year’s graduating class might be the last of its kind at Messalonskee High School: the final batch of departing seniors to get free tuition at state community colleges.
The legislation passed that led to that situation expires this year and hopes of seeing the program renewed took a hit earlier this month when a committee of the Maine Legislature voted unanimously to reject a proposal to continue the free tuition on a permanent basis.
Messalonskee school counselor Keith Derosby bemoans the committee’s decision.
“I think [the free tuition at community colleges] has been a great thing,” Derosby said. “Kids are considering college who wouldn’t have before.”
The current program actually gives this year’s graduates two years to take advantage of the free tuition. For example, a student could elect to enter the workforce directly for a year or two and still get a community college sans the tuition cost in 2027.
Maine, according to a recent article in The Maine Wire, an online news outlet, is one of 33 states that provides – at least to some degree – free community college tuition.
Derosby said the initiative has been a blessing for students given the rising cost of higher education.
“To be fair,” he said, “what four-year colleges are charging is astronomical.”
The Maine Community College System touts that it offers the “lowest tuition in New England” at $4,156 on average for a full-time student.
Derosby said the free tuition program made it even more attractive to attend a community college in Maine. Enrollment numbers reflect that. Last fall the community college system exceeded 20,000 students for the first time, including 2,489 at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield.
In addition, the Maine Maine Maine Community System reported “a total of 17,151 free-college eligible students have enrolled” in Maine community college in recent years, adding that many of them are students who hadn’t considered higher education an option because of the cost.
Derosby said before the free tuition program roughly 44 percent of Messalonskee graduates would elect to attend a four-year college and about 25 percent would choose a two-year college option.
“The free tuition [at Maine community colleges],” he said, “brought those percentages closer together.”