A year after lawmakers opted not to make Maine’s free community college tuition program permanent, Gov. Janet Mills is taking another stab at funding the scholarship program in perpetuity by cutting the annual cost from $12.5 million to $10 million.

The program began in 2022 and has been funded one budget at a time by the Legislature. Last year, Mills proposed adding the program to the baseline budget, but the Appropriations Committee declined, and instead approved only enough funding to cover the program for this year’s high school graduating class.

State leaders and the system have touted the program, one of Mills’ signature policies, as a huge success for Maine’s students and the workforce, and this year she again included a proposal in her supplemental budget to make it permanent.

Mills’ latest effort includes several cost-cutting measures, but nothing the Maine Community College System President David Daigler couldn’t support.

“We didn’t seek these changes, but if the language in (the bill) is accepted, these changes are reasonable, and a viable way to ensure that Maine high school graduates continue to have this incredible opportunity,” Daigler told a joint meeting of the appropriations and education committees during a Friday morning presentation.

The proposal saves $2.5 million over last year by tightening three areas of the program.

First, students will now have to live in Maine for 12 months prior to enrollment to be eligible. Previously, out-of-state students were also eligible, although Daigler said only about 4% of students who took advantage of the program did not reside in Maine when they enrolled.

Also under the new proposal, the program would cover 100% of tuition costs, but no longer include fees, which cost $1,276 per year on average. Daigler emphasized that those are usually covered by federal and state financial aid.

And finally, the amount of time students have to complete their degree to remain eligible for the scholarship will decrease from four years to three.

Last year, when the Appropriations Committee declined to support a proposal to make the program a permanent part of the state’s budget, community college leaders expressed disappointment, but acknowledged the state’s difficult financial situation. This year, Daigler encouraged lawmakers to see the value of making higher education more accessible to Maine high schoolers.

“In the absence of this legislation, this program would end, and Maine would be the only state in the country to start a free college program and then allow the program to lapse,” he said Friday.

Maine’s free college scholarship has what’s called a “last-dollar scholarship” structure, which means students are required to accept any available federal or state aid first, and then the program covers the leftover costs. The average allotment per student has been about $1,600.

Leaders within the community college system, as well as students, submitted testimony in support of making the program permanent.

Victoria Wile, a Central Maine Community College student, said it had allowed her to afford quality tools and materials for her Building Construction Technology degree program, and just focus on learning.

“Without free college, I would have been counting every penny,” Wile testified Friday. “But rather than to invest in my future, it would have been to pay off my debts.”