MELMAC opens doors for students

The Maine Educational Loan Marketing Corporation and Education Foundation allows students to utilize post-secondary opportunities.

MELMAC+opens+doors+for+students

Evan Paquette, Staff Writer

A daunting experience at first glance, the search for higher education becomes more in reach ever since the Maine Educational Loan Marketing Corporation and Education Foundation (MELMAC) was founded in 2001.

Students all over the State of Maine become more aware of the college application process because the MELMAC Education Foundation sets college expectations early and supports all students from middle schools to high schools who apply and receive the grant of $63,000.

In 2013 Biddeford High School received exciting news that their school met the standards for the MELMAC grant to be given to the school. School counselor and MELMAC Grant Lead Dolores Charest embraces the grant along with the hard work and challenges that come with the grant.

“I have to write a report in December which includes the justification of our spending and what we did with the money,” said Charest. “If we didn’t use up all the money the people in charge [of the society] would question if we really have a program that is making kids college ready. In a sense, we do have the quality of a program because of the grant.”

Principal Jeremie Sirois states that the MELMAC grant allows students at Biddeford High School to have experiences, such as college trips and SAT classes, that the school probably wouldn’t be able to offer normally if we didn’t have the grant money.

“Certainly the school would try to get students all these things [that the grant supports], yet those types of things are expensive,” said Sirois. “It would be difficult to fit into the budget, yet the grant allow us to do that stuff.”  

Eli Fletcher, the Student Services Director at Biddeford High School, believes the MELMAC grant is a great program and has great core values which includes getting students in a college mindset early.

“They believe that getting students on college campuses will increase their likelihood to go [to a college],” said Fletcher. “A large part of the grant is given to us to simply make sure that we can provide college trips for the students.”

“Getting students exposed as sophomores allows plenty of time to get their grades up, take more advanced courses, and try for the biggest GPA they can. It gets people thinking of what they can do rather than setting limitations.”

— Jeremie Sirois, Biddeford High School Principal

MELMAC targets students at a young age to allow them to better understand their options for continuing education after high school graduation.

“If you get kids on college campuses in their sophomore year, they start thinking about what they want to do,” said Fletcher. “It influences students to pick their courses with a purpose and allows them to focus in on what would help them get in the direction they want to go.”

Nervous sophomores step off the bus and in set foot onto college campuses, some for the first time. Many students at this grade level don’t really know what they aspire to be and may feel pressured.

As students may not know their ideas for their post-secondary options as a freshman or sophomore, but the grant gets their mind going even if they don’t strive to attend college.

“Being able to get students thinking about going to college is a step in the right direction,” said Sirois. “Getting students exposed as sophomores allows plenty of time to get their grades up, take more advanced courses, and try for the biggest GPA they can. It gets people thinking of what they can do rather than setting limitations.”

Principal Sirois also believes the grant exceedingly benefits the students who go on the college visits.

“Some students may never even step foot on a college campus [if we didn’t offer trips],” said Sirois. “Firstly, it’s expensive to travel there and some students their only access may be through the internet. To get there and actually step foot onto the campus in person is a good thing.”

Another thing the grant supports is the College Board’s Accuplacer test for those students who are not qualified as college ready from SAT scores. Charest presumes that it allows these students who are unready to further their education through community colleges and vocational schools.

“It can give them exposure to Jobs Corps,” said Charest. “It allows the students to have other alternatives.”

As the $63,000 grant ends in late 2017, it allots money to pay for teacher training for helping with preparing students for further schooling.

“We are part of a peer learning program which allows us to work with various agencies to help support students with their college readiness,” Charest said.

If Biddeford High School did not have the grant, the school would still make efforts to aid students along their post-secondary pathway although it wouldn’t be as high of a caliber as it currently is under the MELMAC grant.

“College isn’t the only avenue that the grant supports,” said Charest. “There are a lot of things like the Job Corps, apprentice programs, even the COT supports the students who may have a hard time figuring things out. As long as the students can get skills to earn a decent wage, the grant does what it is supposed to do.”

As the renewal of the grant is up-for-discussion, many faculty would wish to renew it with revisions to plans. Although it is a lot of work for the school department, they want to continue to move forward and do more for the students.

“The rest of this year and next year we will continue to offer trips,” said Fletcher. “Take advantage of them. We don’t quite know if we will be able to continue them after [the grant expires], but it is free right now and it is a great opportunity that a lot of schools and students don’t get.”