Summer 2003

by Alvin P. Sanoff

Jason Long is among the fortunate ones — and he knows it. Jason grew up in an apartment complex in a blue-collar section of South Portland, Maine. His parents hadn’t gone to college, but they encouraged him to get an education. He was near the top of his class at South Portland High School and desperately wanted to attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. But even if accepted by the highly selective liberal arts college, he was uncertain that he would be able to enroll because the cost was nearly $38,000 a year — almost equal to his family's annual income of around $40,000. But Bowdoin offered him more than $20,000 a year in grants. That money — coupled with several other scholarships he had won (including an annually renewable four-year scholarship from the Maine-based Mitchell Institute), income from a campus job, and his parents’ willingness to borrow $3,000 per year despite their modest means — made it possible for Jason to enroll. Now entering his junior year, Jason says he “lucked out” because Bowdoin has such a good program of financial aid.

He was fortunate in many other ways as well — all of which helped him make that leap from working-class South Portland to the halls of academe. First of all, he was personally motivated, and his aspirations were recognized and supported by his parents and school officials. “I don’t think there was anybody at this school who wasn’t impressed with Jason,” recalls Linda Sturm, director of guidance at South Portland High. “He was a natural leader —just an outstanding kid.” It’s no surprise then that, seeing his goal so clearly, Jason did what was necessary to reach it: He took — and excelled in — the rigorous high school courses that prepared him for college. He got the information he needed to successfully apply, enroll and obtain financial aid. The college he chose was among the few institutions with the resources to meet the full need of students who qualify for financial aid. In short, everything went right for Jason. The nonfinancial barriers that prevent so many students from attending college — inadequate preparation, the absence of college aspirations, lack of encouragement or information — simply did not apply to him. He also was able to clear the financial barrier, largely because of his stellar academic record. Few of his high school classmates were as lucky — even those who did well academically but fell short of “star” status.

Linda Sturm says that, although more than 80 percent of South Portland High’s students are qualified for college, less than 65 percent actually enroll. “I have a number of friends who elected not to go to college because of the money,” says Jason. Even more of them, he adds, did not attend their first-choice colleges — often didn’t even apply to those colleges — “because they knew that the cost was impossible.”