AUBURN, Maine — Heather Hill, 34, came to Sherwood Heights Elementary School on Friday to register her son, Elliott, for kindergarten.
She didn’t know she’d walk away with a phone number to talk to a college adviser about finishing her degree.
In a new outreach, College for ME — Androscoggin, is at the Auburn kindergarten registration site this year to talk to parents about going to college. College for ME is a regional collaborative of colleges and businesses designed to boost the number of degree-holders in Androscoggin County.
“We’re calling this ‘Our families going to college,’” said Jan Phillips, College for ME chairwoman. The outreach idea was hatched after College for ME staffers kept hearing adults say they began thinking about going back to school when they registered their children for kindergarten.
“It’s a powerful moment,” Phillips said. Not only can a degree help increase a family’s earning power, it can boost the quality of their children’s education.
“We know the best predictor of how much education children will get, how well they do in school, is their parents’ education and the value their parents place on education,” Phillips said.
In one Sherwood Heights room, little Elliott was being screened for kindergarten. He sat with teachers as they asked him questions and checked his hearing. In another room, his mother sat across a table from Phillips and College for ME staffer Sandi Croft.
Hill told them she nearly finished her degree at the University of Maine at Farmington, but immersed herself in her work at preschool programs, helping children with special needs.
“It was an amazing job,” Hill said. She worked several other jobs, “then my husband and I decided to have kids.” She’s been busy, raising two young sons, teaching Zumba dance classes at night and with a friend, developing a program called “Hip Kids,” to help youngsters get exercise. She has taken some courses at the University of Southern Maine.
Hill said she’s been thinking about going back to school, but wondered if she’d be better off first working as an education technician to help her nail down her career path.
“Finish your degree,” Phillips coached. “Let me say that again in my best mom voice, ‘Finish your degree.’” Jobs could mean more distraction from getting that degree. Many jobs today require a bachelor’s degree, Phillips said. “You’ve got to get it.” Handing her the name and number of an adviser, Phillips said, “Call this woman!”
“I will,” Hill said with a laugh.
Hill said she was glad to have the counseling. “This is so weird. I didn’t think I’d come to kindergarten registration and talk about college. It jump-started me a little bit, which is what I need.”
Soon another mother, Heather Turcotte, found herself talking to Croft about college. Turcotte was at Sherwood Heights to register her daughter, Hailey, for kindergarten.
Turcotte said she has an associate degree in nursing and works as a nurse at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, but she was thinking about getting a bachelor’s degree.
“I’ve always said once she goes back to school that’s when I’ll start to go back to school,” Turcotte said. “While she was home I didn’t want to take that time away from her.”
She approved of the information provided by College for ME. “The contact information is nice,” Turcotte said. “They kind of put it on my lap.”
College for ME outreach at kindergarten registration is planned at Lewiston schools next spring, and at all Androscoggin County schools in 2014, Phillips said.
“We’re all about Androscoggin County, raising the access and attainment of higher education,” Phillips said. She said the goal is to double the number of degree-holders between the years 2000 and 2015. “That’s an ambitious goal.”
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Amazing: Don’t try to figure out what to do in life. Go to school first, spending thousands or your (or other taxpayers’) dollars, on a degree you may never need, use, or care about.
Right…it’s apparent that some don’t!
iHeart washco’s comment!
Just a FYI many larger companies will not promote people anymore without a college degree. A vast majority of time they are not very concerned with what degree it is, they just want you to have a degree. It provides them the assurance you have a well rounded education and have the ability to handle projects, deadlines etc.
That’s insane. The companies don’t care what kind of degree it is? Any old post-high school degree will do? Online learning degree in film, or B.S. in engineering from MIT – same difference, right?
I have had employment several times doing something outside my field. They just wanted to know that I have a degree and it didn’t matter what it was in. Going to college for four years shows many employers that you have been exposed to many things, learned under pressure and met deadlines, etc. In this world one needs a college degree unless they want to do manual labor.
As TrueNative and I both stated they really do not care what type and if the college is accredited then yes a online degree in film will do verses no degree. Obviously a degree more pertinent to the job would be better but not necessary.
Maine is proof this idea doesn’t hold water. We’re consistently in the top 3 states in the entire country with citizens on Welfare, despite being near the bottom in population.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31910310/The_Biggest_US_Welfare_States?slide=15
Many, many people go to college and get a degree that allows them to get satisfyingly employment to support their families. I don’t know many college graduates who think that they earned a degree that they will never need, use or care. Only those without a college diploma think that.
college may not be for everyone, but I think this is a great idea. many moms put off finishing school until their babies go to school. And for MadFrog: not all people who go to college get a degree they cant use. Those people tend to be young, indecisive and take easy classes so they can still party and graduate. This article is talking about adults, who have a family, and who are looking for a career so that they can support their family. I am sure non of these young parents intend on graduating in liberal arts or any other generic degree. Sounds to me these young parents have a career path, a chosen profession that they know will help their family. MadFrog, I think your comment was rude and way out of place, and I think you should apologize to these young women who are trying to better themselves.
These young women seem quite “better.” “Better themselves.” From what. I’d like to know from what. And to what. Enhanced ability to think and analyze critically? (Ah, but you would want that nasty liberal arts degree for that). So – more money? Not guaranteed. Not by a long shot.
I know hundreds of college graduates and not one of them has a liberal arts degree. Often those planning to go to graduate school get a liberal arts degree. In many cases a liberal arts degree will get you a job over a high school diploma.
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This is a great idea. Continuing an education can take many forms. I don’t think college and degrees are the only way to do this. College is however a great option for many.
No one else is saying it so I will: when you go to register your child for Kindergarten, why should you be accosted by people with other agendas? It could just as easily have been any agency (domestic abuse information) or business (YMCA or afterschool care) with that easy access. Think about it.
“Agendas”? How about the simple fact that poverty is endemic in Maine and many people could get an *enormous* hand up by empowering themselves via finishing postgraduate education. This can be done at very little cost due to grants, and the return is huge. Huge! Personally, I don’t see the negatives here.
Not when people think that “postgraduate” means other than Ph.D-level study.
Very little cost! Ha! My steadily growing mountain of Stafford debt would like to have a little chat with you. :)
(Also, I think you meant “postsecondary”. “Postgraduate” is what you’re doing if you stay in school after you have your baccalaureate.)
Then they can follow the majority of the recent college graduates and leave Maine to find a decent job.
I’d want to spend that time learning whether the school was going to obliterate my child’s creativity and intelligence, or enhance it.
Some of the folks that might be helped could not post the well written comment you just added. If they enhance their education, would that not help their children just as much-if not more than the public school might? This is Auburn, Maine-not Cambridge Ma.
I was born that way. Seriously. Articulate, occasionally, but C- intelligence. (You didn’t hear it here first). I came back because, yet again, it’s a woman who is not only to care of her children, but register the child in kindergarten, be a “good wife,” a “good mother.” She’s already working at one of the other hardest jobs on the planet – and it’s put to her that she should finish get her B.S. degree as though she hadn’t been thinking of that, along with a billion other things?
PS The basis for the vocabulary I had had was developed before and during grammar school.
My dad was a high school gard, mom made it to the 10th and received her GED in her 60s. I have a BS, but my daughter has a Pharm D. I just think that when parents go as far as possible with their education-the kids have a good shot to follow if it’s right for them. Mom may very well be thinking about her education, but will she ever act without some help?
True. What help are they offering.
The help is not money, it’s perhaps a little push to think about their future. I would hope that some of these women would qualify for some financail aid.
No one else is saying it for a reason . . .
At least it’s not what the headline initially made me think it was – that parents registering their kids for kindergarten were given a talking-to about getting the kids into college, 13 years hence. I don’t even have to concentrate very hard to imagine something as absurd as that happening nowadays.
Even so, it is a bit on the meddlesome side…
I would like to place a teaparty advocate at the registration offices.
I can think of a few other locations to put a “Tea Party Advocate” not quite as sunny.
Prodding young people to attend college is worthwhile. Next step is up to the colleges to make the education affordable, which is not the case currently.
Yes, I’m curious to know if these parents were encouraged to find a way to go back to college *without* going in to debt to do it. I hope that each one that calls an adviser is counseled on the financial realities and encouraged to minimize (or completely avoid) student loans.
Yep, go into debt for a college education in Maine with an eye toward doing what? All for college if that is what you want to do, but it is not a be all end all of solutions. There has to be a job in your field of study or your paper is useless. So where are these jobs in Maine.?
BTW, one can get a well rounded education without going to college; its called reading. No one needs to pay someone else to force them to read and study any particular subject. I believe unfortunately that the mindset in this country is really skewed, placing more emphasis on structured education than life experience. Just because a person doesn’t go to university doesn’t mean they are uneducated. A person should be judged on what they know and understand, not what piece of paper they have; but that is a more perfect world than this one.
Try getting a well-paying job in 2012 with insurance, benefits and a 401(k) by telling them you don’t have a degree, but you “read…”
I’m proud of my “piece of paper,” although I know it was not as difficult to receive it because standards had already fallen by the early 90s. Fewer credits needed to graduate. Fewer credits i language and science needed. But I worked hard for my baccalaureate degree, and every bit of my education is used in all aspects of my life.
Reading and self-study is fine, but a teacher who provides that extra spark in your brain to make you go beyond what you think you can do, is priceless. To be encouraged to think beyond what we know, and what we believe to be true, is priceless.
Not everyone needs to go attend college. Not everyone should. Colleges should have standards of acceptance. Many do take life experience and self-learning into consideration when considering applicants – and many give credit — if you can document in a scholarly manner, how you came to know what you know.
A wise person may not be formally educated, but “uneducated,” usually indicates a lack of knowledge.
One one hand, I applaud the outreach. But the very fact that there needs to be an ‘outreach’ tells you that the perceived value of a college degree is waning while the perception of campuses being little more than ‘Liberal Indoctrination Camps’ is growing. Curiously, Libs love screaming about the ‘high cost of health care’ but notice how they zip their mouths when the topic switches to the ‘high cost of education.’ And we all know why that is, too. But it needs to be pointed out as an observed fact. Some of the richest ‘One-Percenters’ you’ll ever find are attached to ‘Big Academe.’
Huh?….Huh? Yeah – damn those people who dare thinking broadly. So pesky. If there is a god/moderator, your remark will vanish in it’s own vapor. Ignorance. That’s what’s costly.
So actual knowledge leads to liberalism, as it should.
I have all the degrees I will ever need, and it has never, nor will it ever lead me to liberalism.
If this lady wants to go back to college badly enough, she can/will work out a schedule that works for her. Online offerings also increase every year so people with an associate’s degree can obtain a 4 year degree.
“We’re calling this ‘Our families going to college,’” said Jan Phillips, College for ME chairwoman.
Really? Are you sure she’s not the charwoman of the college?
If they really want to help this young woman, and others, to attain her B.S. in nursing, why don’t the “College for ME,” (Gag. A precursor to such brilliance as, “I’ve been colleged.”), folks get a program going at St. Mary’s. The hospital should want that. The colleges should want that. There would even be child care on site. Just imagine “We’re the medical center with the greatest number of Baccalaureate-level Nursing staff.” (Of course, they would need to pay them or lose them).
In the 1970s – the later 1970s, Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh, NY, offered what was called the “Fri-Sat” program so that people who worked full time could continue their education. Usually, the program attracted women, and women with children. In addition to offering substantive academic courses for credit, they also offered courses for children at the same time. The mothers would be in one class, the child would be in another, learning, for example, the Spanish language.
I swear it is true that all advances made before 1984 vanished in smoke. All the good, solid, reasonable, things — gone.
I don’t have to tell anyone how motivating and fun and engaging it was for parent and child to be going off to school together.
After another look at the photograph, my guess is that Ms. Turcotte is thinking, “I can’t believe I sat down for this.”
I like any program that betters the lives of children and their parents. This type of thing seems like an excellent idea to me.
Here is someone trying to do something good and look at all the negative comments! I think that anyone who wants to go to college should and good for them!
Quite a few Negative Nellies on here with regard to encouraging someone to further his or her education. I remember, from my wandering past, being in an organization that valued additional education and it didn’t matter in what area. It was called the US Army. Additional education helped out with promotion.
I would be quite upset and offended if I took my child to register for kindergarten and had to listen to a lecture about why I myself am not spending my hard earned money paying up front, or repaying a loan or grant to attend an overpriced college that charges 200 bucks for a textbook you use for one semester. It would be enough to send home bulletins that counseling is available for those that might want to look into it, and to hold college nights throughout the year to offer that service.
This is only a ploy to coerce people into spending money on an overpriced for profit institution when they cannot walk away and are FORCED to listen. Similiar to the last flight I took in April when the stewardess tried to get me to sign up for a credit card while in the air, and I had to listen to her speil as she addressed the whole cabin and then individually walked around asking people to sign. Yes, that really happened. And this is no different. It is called having a ‘captive audience’.
While many comments on this subject in this forum are valid, employers are looking for degrees, etc…a degree does not guarantee a job. There was just a report about the high numbers of people with degrees that cannot find work, and that it is the highest rate ever. While it could certainly be helpful, this was not the time to do that. That particular day when you register your child for school, should be exactly that, focused on the child.
“We’re all about Androscoggin County, raising the access and attainment of higher education,” Phillips said. She said the goal is to double the number of degree-holders between the years 2000 and 2015. “That’s an ambitious goal.”
Well yes, that’s wonderful, but where will they work?
Will their degree allow them a wage that pays them enough to back any loans they may have to get?
I’m not trying to be negative here. I’m genuinely curious. I simply can’t get anyone to give me a straight answer to that question.
maybe her priorities are not her own at the moment
Agenda indoctrination at it’s finest! Someone should interrogate Jan Phillips about her own degrees! I’m sure there are higher degrees she could be earning!
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