AUGUSTA – State lawmakers hope to start a chain reaction leading to more students going to postsecondary education.

The Legislature’s Education Committee voted Friday to support a bill that would require every high school senior to fill out an application for college or another type of schooling past high school. The bill will move to the House and Senate.

Students don’t have to send the application under the bill, they just need to complete it, according to its sponsor, House Speaker Rep. Glenn Cummings, D-Portland.

The state needs to boost the numbers of students going to college, Cummings said.

“Businesses will not move here, hire workers and train them anymore,” he wrote in his testimony to the committee. “They want to locate places where they can hire people who are ready to work. Not having a skilled work force is holding back Maine’s economy.”

Poland Regional High School already has this requirement as part of a broader program, and the number of students pursuing higher education has increased, said Erin Connor, dean of faculty at the school.

The requirement has been in place since 2004, said Poland Principal Bill Doughty in written testimony to the Education Committee last week.

“In this time we have seen students who resisted going to college turned around and are now enrolled in a community college or other school,” he wrote.

Joan Macri, aspirations coordinator at Lewiston High School, said she was skeptical about the bill’s ability to make an impact.

“It does no harm, and it may do some good,” she said.

Getting students to fill out college applications at LHS is not a problem. The bill would only force a few more to apply, she said. The school has an aspirations lab with resources and help for students.

“It would be better to support them at younger ages,” she said.

During Friday’s Education Committee work session, legislators were most concerned with putting extra burden on both the students and the college admissions offices.

While committee members questioned the effect on college admissions offices, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said the problem of having too many people applying to college is preferable to having too few.

Rep. Edward Finch, D-Fairfield, voted for the bill, but with much reservation.

Plus, he said, there is nothing stopping schools from requiring this on their own.

Others wondered about special education students.

“There is a college or program for every student, regardless of any ability,” Gendron responded.