President David Flanagan says the steps are needed to reduce a $16 million budget gap.
Noel K. Gallagher
Noel Gallagher covers K-12 and higher education issues statewide. Her stories are a mix of breaking news and trend stories. In recent years, they’ve ranged from why college costs so much, the launch of the state’s first charter schools, how a school welcomed a transgender student and why Maine schools have a hard time finding teachers. She’s enough of a news nerd to enjoy sitting through legislative education committee meetings and hours-long school board meetings so you don’t have to.
The Maine Press Association has honored Noel’s work, but she says she writes for the readers, in the firm belief that an informed citizenry is key to a healthy democracy.
Noel is a California native who has worked at wire services, online websites and newspapers across the country. She was in Washington D.C. during the early Clinton years, covering AIDS activism in 1990s San Francisco, documenting the business of wine in Sonoma County and riding out the boom and bust cycle of the early Internet era in early 2000s Silicon Valley. She arrived in Maine at the beginning of the recession and wrote quite a bit about the downturn here.
In her free time, Noel writes the occasional cookbook review, spends an inordinate amount of time at the Portland Public Library and hangs out with her three fabulous kids and wonderful husband. She is not a former member of the band Oasis.
Charter school committee recommends second virtual school
The full commission will vote Wednesday on whether the application of Maine Virtual Academy should move on for review.
Barry Rodrigue: The professor
Going back to college as a 40-year-old, Barry Rodrigue had a plan to get a double Ph.D. in order to land a dream job. To an extent, it worked. But it took a decade of school and $180,000 in student loans to get those degrees: a master’s in history from University of Maine, a Ph.D. […]
Sheri Clark Nadell and Paul Nadell: The parents
With two sons in college and a third in high school, Sheri Clark Nadell of Brunswick is honoring a vow she made that her children wouldn’t graduate with student debt. She and her husband, Paul, are paying for their undergraduate education. So far, that vow has cost them about $60,000, and they still have their […]
Olivia Conrad: The college student
It took just one not-so-great year at St. Lawrence University in New York for Yarmouth native Olivia Conrad, 19, to accrue about $25,000 in debt – a serious wake-up call about paying for college. “I kind of understood it … (but) I feel like I should know more about how my college is being paid […]
GI Bill started the steady march to college for all
After World War II, the decades brought not only wider access to higher education but also new rationales for pursuing it.
College costs: A student, a professor and parents tell their stories
Debt accrues quickly, making jobs a priority and putting pressure on parents.
Cost of higher education draining Mainers
Soaring student debt impacts the economy, with graduates putting off life investments as they struggle to repay loans.
USM Faculty Senate proposes closing a campus
The proposal is offered as an alternative to cutting 50 faculty positions and two academic programs.
Program, faculty cuts at USM headed for vote despite protests
About 50 students, graduates and faculty members rally against the plan that’s set for a vote Oct. 24.