For hundreds of thousands of young Americans who will graduate from high school this spring, D-Day, as in decision day, is fast approaching. For many islanders also: the 25 or so high school seniors from Maine’s 15 island communities who have applied to attend college in the fall have collectively received some several hundred letters from colleges and universities across the country and some in Canada. Nineteen of these seniors have applied for scholarship support from the Island Institute.
For anyone who has not had the bittersweet experience of packing a college student off to campus lately, you would be shocked to learn that the costs of a four-year degree at a private college will make buying a house seem affordable. Six years ago when my oldest son went off to a pricey New England college with a scholarship, tuition room and board was a little over $30,000 per year or $120,000 to graduate. Since we knew that over the course of a lifetime, the difference between what one earns with a college degree and with a high school degree totals about a million dollars on average, the investment seemed reasonable. This year that same college will charge about $44,000 per year, or almost $180,000 for a college degree. Still worth it, but a huge stretch and getting worse.
Last year with the help of contributions from many members of the Island Institute and the generous support of two private foundations and the Maine Community Foundation, the Institute awarded $42,400 in college scholarships to 53 island students, many in their second, third or fourth years of study. We also awarded approximately $26,000 in other scholarship support for continuing education programs for islanders who wanted to improve their skills or increase their knowledge apart from a college degree.
Given the shocking escalation in college education costs, last year the Institute launched a our first “Island Partner Scholarship,” $5,000 to the most outstanding island student on his or her way to college, with a $2,500 award to the runner-up. These awards recognize students who have combined “civic leadership and community involvement with academic achievement.” The first award went to a student headed off to Brown University. This student, `Buoy’ Whitener, is a self-employed lobsterman on Long Island, was an elected town representative to the Maine State Democratic Caucus, and was president of the Junior Classical League, captain of the rugby team, and an honor student at Portland High School.
People sometimes question whether the Institute’s scholarship program undermines our mission by encouraging young islanders to leave their homes and communities. However, we view island life as a precarious but continuous balance between those who leave and those who arrive. In-migration must at least balance out-migration or a community goes into decline. The surest way to sap a community of its vitality is to close educational options for its young people. Who wants to live in a community that tries to hold its young people captive? The reverse is also true: the surest way to increase community vitality is to attract a reasonable number of year-round newcomers who will contribute to the civic life of small towns. Without good schools and real options for students to continue their education off-island, no island, nor small town, can survive.
Twenty years ago, relatively few island kids went off to college and more certainly went than graduated with a four-year degree. The culture shock of leaving the security of a nurturing island town and living in a college community was often too intense to bear. I remember one group of four islanders who graduated from an island high school a number of years ago and went off to college: three were back on-island by Christmas because they were completely unprepared for the transition. Another island community fought a bitter school battle over whether off-island field trips to help teach transition skills to its students were an appropriate strategy for the island school to pursue.
To judge from last year’s scholarship recipients, island communities and island schools must be doing something right. More and more islanders are opting for college or associate degrees. The schools they are attending clearly demonstrate they can successfully perform in any academic environment — from the mechanical engineering department at the University of Maine in Orono to Maine Maritime Academy, Colby, Smith, Dartmouth, Brown and Bowdoin.
The College Scholarship Scoring Committee has begun its work on this year’s excellent pool of applicants. The Committee chosen for this year includes representatives from Swan’s Island, Vinalhaven, Islesford, Chebeague and Peaks. Final award decisions will be made by the third week in May and announced shortly thereafter. We will report on the results in the June issue of this newspaper.
If you would like to know more about this program, either as a future scholarship recipient or as a prospective supporter of the Institute’s scholarship program, please get in touch with Rob Snyder or Ruth Kermish-Allen, phone 594-9209; email rsnyder@islandinstitute.org;
or rallen@islandinstitute.org.
Philip Conkling is president of the Island Institute.