EXPANDED COLLEGE LOAN PROGRAM 613

a cost of only f 16. 5 million to the State, whereas under the present
scholarship program only $26 million in student aid would be pro-
vided, all at the State's expense.

Furthermore, the Governor noted that the increased amount avail-
able to students — $1, 000 for undergraduates, |1, 500 for graduate
students — could be used at out-of-state colleges and at vocational
technical schools now barred from State scholarship aid, as well as at
all public and private colleges in Maryland.

"Let's look at some hard facts about where we are headed with the
present scholarship program and how it is failing to meet the needs
of our Maryland students and many who would like to attend college
but cannot, " Governor Agnew said in a statement.

"Even though Maryland now offers scholarships with a total value
of $3. 4 million, only one out of three students who apply for them
can receive them. And the applicants total only one-tenth of our
college population.

"Many of these grants are broken into units of $250, an amount
the student finds totally inadequate toward meeting the costs of today's
college education.

"With the rising costs of attending college, and rapidly expanding
enrollments, the present $3. 4 million scholarship program can reason-
ably be expected to cost the State at least $7. 8 million a year by 1973.
And we still won't be meeting the educational needs of our young
people.

"By contrast, 90 percent of all those whose loan applications are
approved by banks receive State-guaranteed, low interest loans which
cost the student nothing while in college and allow a 10-year period
beginning 10 months after graduation to repay the loan.

"But because of the present difficulties in obtaining bank financing,
only 60 percent of those who apply to banks obtain approval. At that,
there are 6, 271 Maryland students currently attending colleges with
loans of $1, 000 to $1, 500, compared with only 4, 486 who qualify for
scholarship grants.

"By bolstering our loan program through the use of presently
available scholarship funds, and by making the loans more attractive
to banks, we can place a college education within the reach of almost
all of our high school students who qualify academically for admission
to college, and they can go to the school of their choosing.

"That, after all, should be our objective — the objective of edu-
cators, as well as of State administrators. "