POLAND – Mary Clemons had no intention of going to college after completing high school last year, and she was not pleased when her high school told her she had to complete a college application and submit it.

Now enrolled in Central Maine Community College, where she’s studying to be a medical assistant, Clemons has a far different view of policies that go beyond just encouraging and facilitating applications for higher education.

The requirement, she says, “can open up everyone’s possibilities.”

The policy at Poland Regional High School, where a grant provides all high school seniors with $20 to go toward application fees, inspired legislation to make high school seniors at least fill out applications for higher education.

A number of schools in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states have adopted application requirements. And some states – including Maine – are using college admissions tests as part of their student assessment programs.

But none has yet adopted a statewide requirement that students fill out college applications, said David Hawkins, public policy director for the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Alexandria, Va.

The bill in Maine’s Legislature is simple – only 43 words – and has strong sponsorship. House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, brings credibility on the issue as a former teacher. The Education Committee, which Cummings previously chaired, voted unanimously to recommend passage, and the House of Representatives passed it without debate. It won initial Senate approval on Thursday and awaits final votes in both chambers.

The idea has also drawn support from Gov. John Baldacci, who like other state officials has recognized that Maine lags other states in college graduation rates.

“I think the idea fits in with our efforts for all students to be prepared for college, career and citizenship,” Baldacci said. “Hopefully, it will increase aspirations and give more students the opportunity to make college a choice.”

Poland high senior Elizabeth Hubbard, 17, said it does more than that.

Despite her parents’ encouraging her to attend college, Hubbard said she was “a little rebellious” at first. But now that she’s gone through the process, she’s grateful for the must-apply requirement.

“It’s helped to focus a career path,” said Hubbard, who applied to 11 schools in and out of the state and chose the University of Maine at Farmington. She wants to become an English teacher.

A classmate, Shane Keene, used to think the must-apply requirement was “ridiculous.” But the closer he got to his senior year, the more the policy made sense, said Keene, who will take the automotive technician course at CMMC in Auburn.

“In our school, they push you to find what you’re interested in,” said Keene, who like Hubbard will become the first one in his family to go to college. As for the statewide legislation, “I say go for it,” said Keene. “College is really important. Most kids don’t realize it.”

Not everybody buys into the application mandate.

Andrew Bryan, an educational consultant in Baker City, Ore., calls mandating the application process a “short cut to what really needs to happen, and what really makes an impact – namely, more resources dedicated to counseling and mentoring of students.”

Bryan said he’s learned over the years that the more independent students are in the college application process, the more likely they are to be admitted to the college of their choice and to be successful.

“If I were to mandate anything it would be to have every sophomore or junior in Maine spend two days and a night at a college campus,” Bryan said by e-mail. “Try that and I’ll bet they’ll mostly then want to fill out applications!”

If the idea for a statewide requirement was born at Poland high, it was nurtured by Maine’s new way to measure student achievement, which gave everybody in Augusta an unexpected lesson in raising aspirations.

After Maine became the first state to use SATs instead of the state’s own tests as an academic measuring stick for high school juniors, education officials expected to see a slip in scores. But they noticed last December that the drop was less than expected – suggesting that more Maine kids than previously thought had college potential.

That was backed up by anecdotal reports of students surprising themselves by their SAT scores – and suddenly realizing they had what it takes to go to college.

Elected officials in Maine have long been concerned about the state’s poor ranking for college degree attainment among its residents, even though Maine rates near the top for high school graduation rates.

In 2004, only 49 percent of Maine’s high school graduates actually entered college in the fall, compared to 59 percent in New England, according to the Maine Compact for Higher Education, a group of education, government and business leaders who want to make Maine residents among the best-educated in America by 2019.

Reaching that goal is a matter of economic survival for Maine, said the compact’s executive director, Henry Bourgeois, who adds that more than two-thirds of the jobs being created in the fastest-growing sectors of the nation’s economy require some education beyond high school.

“There’s clearly an economic dimension to this,” said Cummings.

But there’s also more to the bill than turning out a better-educated work force.

“It’s about expectations and inspiration,” said Cummings. “It’s about priding themselves as capable.”

AP-ES-04-28-07 1005EDT

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