Chronicle of Higher Education: What Do Changes in Maine Mean For the Future of Free College

Legislation working its way through the Maine State Legislature could make a free-community-college program a permanent part of the state budget - but also alter it to limit eligibility and make some students newly responsible for fees. It would be the first time since free-college programs proliferated to around 35 states over the past decade that a state-level program has cut back benefits.

A supplemental budget bill under consideration by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee would permanently add the program to the state's budget. (It has been funded since 2022 on a year-to-year basis.) It would also change the provisions of the current program in three ways: limiting eligibility to students who have lived in Maine for a year before applying, covering three years of study rather than four, and removing coverage of institutional fees.

The changes were made to ensure the program works exclusively for Mainers and that it remains economically feasible to support, said David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System. The residency requirement was added because of concerns that out-of-state students were taking advantage of Maine taxpayer dollars: About 4 percent of students who have received free-college benefits each year hailed from out of state before moving to Maine and applying. The other two shifts were prompted by concerns from lawmakers about the costs of making the program permanent, Daigler said: "It's really all about that future commitment."

Making free college a permanent part of the state budget was part of an "affordability agenda " advanced by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat. John Baldacci and John R. McKernan Jr., former Democratic and Republican governors of the state, respectively, endorsed the move in a newspaper editorial.

Daigler acknowledged that there's something magic about the words "free college" that opens minds and doors for students who might not otherwise think of attending. In 2022, the first year the program was offered, the system expected about 8,000 applicants and received about 12,000. Community-college enrollments of students coming directly from high school have been about 50 percent higher during the past three years than in the three-year period preceding the start of the program.

It is unclear to what extent asking students to pay hundreds of dollars of fees will be an impediment to participating in the program. Studying at a Maine community college costs about $2,100 per semester in tuition and fees. Maine's free-college program, like most, works on a "last dollar" basis, which means that it covers costs after all other forms of federal and state aid kick in. Students eligible for the maximum Pell Grant will still have their tuition and fees covered. About 30 percent of students in slightly higher income brackets would have to pay their fees, which amount to about $600 a semester.

Despite the increased costs for some students, the revamped program represents a good thing over all for Maine learners, said Laura Perna, a professor of education and senior vice provost for faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. "They're trying to figure out a way to have some assurance to people that this actually is going to be available now, and it will continue to be available," she said. "That's what people need if they're trying to make plans about going to college."

The larger issue is that, even with tuition and fees covered, attending college involves other costs that states and institutions rarely address. Students "still need to buy books, and they have to figure out how to get to campus," she said. Food, child care, and living expenses are also part of the picture. "Perhaps this can be part of a bigger conversation of how we ensure that people who want to go to college actually can afford to go and then fully engage in the experience."

Daigler does not see the changes in Maine as the beginning of a tide turning against free-college programs. If anything, he said, it's the opposite. The proposed changes in Maine will reduce the state's costs from about $12.5 million a year to about $10 million a year, he said, which will allow the program to be sustainable. "That's budgeting reality. There are a lot of pressures on the state," he said. "If there was a clawback, they would have said, 'We can't fund this.' And so I don't think that you're seeing a reduction. I think it's a ratification of the importance of the program."

The supplemental budget bill still has to be voted on by the state House and Senate - and if passed, signed by Mills - to become law. Daigler says he's "optimistic" that the new program will go into effect.