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Janet Mills on Education |
Maine's Community Colleges experienced record enrollment last year. Free community college is working. Let's keep it up for another two years!
I will fund an overhaul of the Opportunity Maine Tax Credit. We will broaden and simplify the program's eligibility criteria so that those who graduated with student debt--regardless of what type of degree they have or where they graduated or what type of work they do now--they will be eligible for up to $25,000 of debt relief over the course of their lifetime, so long as they have a job and they make Maine their home.
Our CTEs [Career and Technical Education] are more important than ever; yet they have not received significant funds for equipment since 1998. I ask this body to fund equipment upgrades for our CTEs so that teachers are able to provide our 8,000 CTE students with the skills that we desperately need them to have.
We need to simplify debt relief programs like the Educational Opportunity Tax Credit to help more graduates retire their debt. And we must boost the Educators for Maine Loan Forgiveness Program to incentivize young teachers to work in the underserved areas which desperately need them.
We provide $18.5 million to Child Development Services to support our youngest and neediest children. For kindergarten through high school, we provide an additional $126 million. This budget invests in recruitment and retention to ensure that teachers in Maine will not be forced to leave the state for a living wage. This budget ensures that no teacher in Maine will make less than $40,000 a year.
We also provide $18.5 million to Child Development Services to support the needs of our youngest and neediest children. For kindergarten through high school, we provide an additional $126 million over the biennium. This brings the state's share of public education funding to nearly 51 percent of Essential Programs and Services.
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