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On a cool fall evening, 70 or so business leaders attended a fundraiser at the Maine Discovery Museum to support and celebrate Opportunity Maine. The Opportunity Maine Initiative will go down in history as one of the rare citizen’s initiatives that was passed overwhelmingly by the legislature and the governor. Effective January 2008, the new law allows students who go to college in Maine and work here afterward to claim a large tax credit for the life of their student loans. Businesses may also opt to pick up the tab for any such employee’s student loans and receive the tax credit.
The evening’s guest speaker was Richard Pattenaude, the new chancellor of the University of Maine System and enthusiastic supporter of the plan. Perhaps the most inspirational speaker was Nicole Brown, a recent college student who worked tirelessly to get the Opportunity Maine Initiative passed into law—though she graduated too soon to be able to take advantage of the tax credit herself.
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Lifestyle: Sightings
Opportunity Maine Initiative proponents decided the best way to plug Maine's "brain drain" was with a large tax credit.
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