Making college affordable again

The median family income in Montana is around $35,000 a year.

It costs $11,300 a year for a student to attend the University of Montana at Missoula.

That means it takes almost a third of a family's income to keep one student in college. And when that student graduates, he or she typically owes $20,000 to $25,000 in college loans.

Those daunting numbers are leading to a decline in Montana students heading to college, according to a University of Montana study.

"A number of young people in Montana, in large part because of income levels, are being priced out of college," UM President George Dennison said.

One possibility would be to simply lower the price, but Dennison said that's not really an option. Ever-rising tuition apparently is a fact of life for those dealing with college.

But UM has come up with a pilot program to try to make it more affordable for modest- and low-income Montana families faced with the sticker shock of sending students off to college.

By combining federal, state and university grants with work-study money, UM's pilot project aims to cut in half the debt load these students would pile up at the university.

The goal is to trim the four-year debt total to $10,000 and rekindle the interest of high school students who want to go to college but fear they can't afford it.

About 400 students would be eligible for the pilot program. That may not sound like a huge number, but the state also is facing an overall 20-percent drop in high school graduates over the next decade.

In the university numbers game, that's not a positive trend. "We want an educated work force. If we don't get that, forget the rest," Dennison said, referring to the role of higher education in economic development.

The pilot program applies only to the University of Montana and its college of technology, but if it's successful it could be expanded to other branches of the state university system.

Given the unlikely prospect of a rollback in tuition, this type of college financial help may be the only way some deserving students will be able to afford higher education. So it's laudable that UM is trying to reach those students who are being left behind.