Free Stuff: Maine Gives Away Community College Seats to Build Enrollment

If you can't sell your product, and the state will provide a subsidy, give it away! Maine has a Free Community College program that covers tuition and mandatory fees to attend Maine's community colleges. Graduates -- including non U.S. Citizens -- from a high school in Maine, from 2020 through 2025, are eligible to participate.    

Factors motivating the free community college program include declining community college enrollment and the belief that a college education is not "affordable."  (A third factor is the affinity of some in Maine's for social industrial complex projects). 

Community colleges have historically served three segments:

• recent high school graduates aspiring to earn a certificate or a two year degree; 
• recent high school graduates seeking to accumulate general education courses and then transfer to a four year institution;  
• recent high school students seeking to prove themselves capable of college level work in order to qualify for admission to a four year institution. 
• adult learners seeking credentials necessary for a sought after promotion or career change. 

Southern New Hampshire University has done an impressive job serving adult learners with their two and four year programs.  How or are are Maine's community colleges addressing this competitive reality?

Maine's community colleges serve a shrinking pool of recent high school graduates.  Maine public school enrollment has been essentially flat with 59,946 learners enrolled Fall 1990 and 55,569 learners enrolled in Fall 2021 (the most recent year for which enrollment data are available). Maine public high school enrollment is projected to decline by 7.8% between Fall 2022 and Fall 2031 (50,700 projected learners). [Data are extracted from Table 203.30. Public school enrollment in grades 9 through 12, by region, state, and jurisdiction: Selected years, fall 1990 through fall 2031]. This projected decline in high school students will add enrollment pressure on Maine's community and four year post secondary institutions. 

Maine Public Radio published on January 5, 2024, an update (press release?) on the Maine's Free Community College Program. Let's check it out. 

The report begins (emphasis added):

Students in the state's Free College program made up almost half of students in the Maine Community College system in the 2022 school year.

In a report to the legislature, the system says more than 6500 students were enrolled through the initiative. 

Translated: Maine taxpayers are paying the tuition of approximately 50% of students attending Maine's community colleges.  Approximately 50% of students attending Maine community colleges are not generating revenue for the institutions. Rather, the institutions are heavily subsidized by Maine taxpayers. 

Enrollment appears to be the primary success metric for the free community college tuition program. Colloquially, in higher ed we refer to this as the 'butts in seats' metric.  While enrollment numbers are important, enrollment is an input focus, metric; a metric that emphasizes system inputs rather than system outputs (successes). 

Decades ago, most in higher ed, including accrediting agencies, transitioned from emphasizing input metrics to emphasize output metrics that reflect learner performance. Examples of common output metrics for academic programs include:  

• learner persistence: do learners complete courses or programs in which they are enrolled?   Or do learners bail from courses or programs without completing them? 
• program completion: do learners enrolled in degree or certificate programs complete the program; earn the sought after degree or certificate?
• time to graduation: do learners complete programs in a timely manner?   Time is money. The quicker a learner can complete a program, the lower the cost; financial and opportunity costs.  Are there structural impediments within the institution that impedes time to graduation? For example, are key required or elective courses available when learners are ready to take them? 

Maine's free college program places no demands on the learner other than that they enroll in classes and have residency in the state of Maine. This lack of learner accountability likely enhances butts in seats in the near term (learners fear no consequences from accepting the free tuition offer). This lack of learner accountability stands in contrast to other free tuition programs, such as New York's Excelsior Scholarship Program for example, that include learner performance expectations to qualify for tuition reduction. 

The Maine Public Radio report continues:

And system president David Daigler said they've been able to attract students who otherwise would not have gone to college.

"So we're bringing students into college classrooms that have been shying away from college classrooms," he said. "Now that is more important today than it's ever been."

Daigler reinforces the emphasis on enrollment.  Unclear is why he notes, "that is more important today than it's ever been." A cynic's mind might wonder to the historically declining enrollment in Maine's community colleges. The cynic might might ponder that the priority is to fill seats to shore up funding for Maine's Community college system; to use tax subsidies to shore up Maine's struggling community college system? 

Continuing ...

The system has given out more than $10 million to students through the Free College initiative. That's just over half of the $20 million the legislature allocated for the effort that pays community college tuition and fees for recent high school graduates.

Note the emphasis on the input metric: dollars "given out."  Perhaps I'm being over sensitive here, but the thought of my tax dollars being "given out" is unsettling. Do the learners enrolled in the free community college program similarly view that they are receiving a hand out? Stepping back, what is the ROI on these dollars that are "given out"? Enquiring minds want to know. For example, how many learners successfully complete degree or certificate requirements? 

More ...

"And if you were to ask me what is the most important, most revealing statistic is that we are attracting students, and a specific type of student who had demonstrated a resistance to higher education both before the pandemic and especially during the pandemic," Daigler said.

What is this "demonstrated a resistance to higher education"? What does that mean?  This phrase reeks of an elitist attitude that is, in my experience, common among individuals in higher education leadership positions. This elitist perspective holds that learners that don't enroll in academic institutions aren't savvy enough to appreciate the wonder of our academic programs and institutions. (The credo that 'everyone' should attend college is another common elitist belief . That kettle of fish I'll leave swimming and not elaborate here further). In other words: blame the learner. A better approach is for higher education institutions to look inward; to scrutinize the value proposition(s) the institution offers learners.  

If learners are "resistant" perhaps the institution's value proposition isn't relevant to certain segments of learners; for that 'specific type of student.' The internal focus suggests that the whole enterprise is not about learners learning (the primary mission of educational institutions, no?), but rather about business. Sales, if you will. About enrollment. About planting butts in seats. And keeping them there, at least until after the all important term census date is eclipsed and term enrollment numbers are finalized.  Fall census numbers are the gold standard for institutional enrollment; numbers that are reported to the Federal Government and other oversight agencies. Including funding sources. Census numbers provide no insight into institutional effectiveness at, for example retaining those students counted in the census to the end of the academic term (and beyond). (see outcome metrics, above).

There's more ...

Overall enrollment in the system increased 12% in the 2022 school year, nearing pre-pandemic levels. Free college students made up 46% of degree-seeking students.

So, he is saying that the value many learners place on Maine's community college courses and programs asymptotes toward zero. By offering classes for free, Maine's community colleges did get more butts in seats. The free tuition program increased the share of recent high school graduates enrolling in Maine's community colleges. Maine's high school enrollment is projected to decline (see above). This is a temporary enrollment increase that is not a sustainable. To what additional segments will Maine's community colleges seek to develop enrollment? 

Kaitlyn Budion, the "news reporter" that authored the Maine Public Radio article seems uninterested in flushing out the story behind Maine's free community college tuition program. A sampling of intriguing questions not explored include: How many learners participating in Maine's free community college program will persist to complete a degree or certificate? How many of those learners might have instead attended one of Maine's four year colleges had they not been incentivized to attend community college? What is the systemic cost of this shift to learners and institutions? Community colleges are competing for first time freshmen enrollment that may have otherwise attended a four year institution.  Will learners aspiring for a four year degree, that complete two years of free community college classes, be better prepared to transfer to a four year college and complete a degree in two additional years? It appears that Maine has not put in place pathways for such learners. In my experience, many learners will discover that, once their community college course credits are evaluated by a four year institution, they are likely looking at an additional three years of course work to satisfy requirements for a four year degree.  

Maine's free community college program sounds good. The program allocates monies to learners qualified by having graduated from a high school in Maine.  Sound good. Is the program effective? The program appears effective at distributing 50% of allocated tax dollars to qualified learners.  The program appears effective in increasing near term enrollment at Maine's community colleges. These are short term outcomes. Will Maine's free tuition program succeed in terms of meaningful long term metrics such as degree or certificate programs completed? Is incentivizing Maine's high school graduates to attend a Maine community college, as opposed to other alternatives, in the best interest of the learners? Or is it a short term fix to stop-gap structurally declining community college enrollment? Has Maine thought this through?  Is Maine's community college system taking a hard look at the markets they serve and the value propositions they offer? Unclear.     

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