AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Education will receive an additional $60,000 in federal funds to help Maine high schoolers from low-income families afford Advanced Placement tests.
Advanced Placement exams give students college credits before they enter a higher education institution, provided the student performs well on the test.
On Monday, the office of Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, announced that the federal Department of Education planned to issue another $60,000 toward Maine’s Advanced Placement Test Fee Program, bolstering the total funding for the program to nearly $144,000.
To take the test, a student must pay a $91 fee for each AP exam that student wants to take. Of that payment, $9 stays with the school to help it cover the costs of administering the test.
The College Board, which is responsible for AP testing, provides a $29 fee reduction for eligible low-income students. Schools also tend to forego their $9 rebate for those students, bringing the cost down to $53 per exam.
The department received an $80,500 grant in 2013-2014, allowing the department to pay for 1,811 exams taken by low-income students in Maine.
The allocation for July 1, 2014, through Sept. 30, 2015, jumped from about $84,000 to nearly $144,000 with the funding announced this week, according to Maine DOE.
“Certainly Maine DOE is assisting in the movement to position students for college readiness as colleges these days are seeking more diversity in a student beyond GPA and SAT scores,” the department said in an email Wednesday. “By offsetting student expenses, more students will be awarded the opportunity to enroll in AP courses.”
According to College Board, 24 percent of Maine’s public high school 11th- and 12th-graders took at least one AP exam in 2014, up from 13 percent a decade before.
There are nearly 40 Advanced Placement tests available in subjects ranging from world languages and European history to chemistry to psychology. High schools across the state offer courses to prepare students for these tests.
Maine DOE also offers AP4ALL, a program that helps students in rural and impoverished parts of the state get access to online AP courses they otherwise couldn’t reach.
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