SALEM - Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski made a rare personal pitch to legislators Tuesday, calling on a Senate committee to approve his plan to help Oregon students pay for college.

The plan, based on one in use in Minnesota, would require students to kick in as much as they'd make from working full time in the summer and part time during the school year at a minimum-wage job - about $4,750.

Students at four-year schools would have to come up with another $2,750, from savings, a higher-paying job, loans or scholarships. Families would kick in some of the rest, depending on their income level, and students would also have to take full advantage of federal grants and tax credits.

But when all those options had been tapped, Kulongoski would have the state pick up the rest of the tab - an average grant of $2,103 a year.

The current grant system restricts grants to the neediest students and covers just 11 percent of their educational costs - for an average annual grant of about $1,207.

“This is one of the most important pieces of legislation I have introduced as governor,” Kulongoski told Education Committee members. “This is the best new idea, with the smallest price tag, to come along in a long time.”

Legislators, stung by years of receiving failing grades on college affordability from national report cards, have signaled that they're receptive to Kulongoski's plan.

Members of the committee Tuesday, calling the idea a “legacy issue” for this legislative session. But they largely avoided how to pay for it.

The proposal carries a $110 million price tag, up significantly from the $78 million the state is spending on college aid during the current budget cycle.

Kulongoski has proposed paying for the expansion by an increase in the corporate minimum tax, currently set at $10 and unchanged for decades.

Republicans have said they could support an increase in that tax, but they want to see it accompanied by cuts in the capital gains and estate taxes - potentially unpopular with their Democratic counterparts.

Higher education is a tricky issue for legislators. On the one hand, Republicans and Democrats alike are well aware that strong public community colleges and universities are economic engines, and their graduates will eventually contribute far more to the state's bottom line than it cost to educate them.

But lawmakers also know that unlike elementary and secondary public schools, universities and community colleges can rely on tuition hikes to make up for state budget cuts, which is what's happened in Oregon over the past few years. Average tuition at Oregon's 17 community colleges has risen 99 percent over the last decade.

Kulongoski, and the members of the state Board of Higher Education, hope the new model for grants can address the debt burden that increasing numbers of Oregon students are saddled with, now estimated at an average $20,000 for those leaving a four-year school.

Average annual tuition across Oregon's seven public university campuses is $5,520 this year, a 5 percent increase from the year before. Students also have to pay for books, room and board, bringing the average total to about $15,000.

The new model should reduce debt levels to about $13,000 for university students, said Tim Nesbitt, Kulongoski's deputy chief of staff, and potentially eliminate debt for community college students.

Kulongoski said he hopes the new program will entice more Oregon students to college, a goal that's proved elusive.

Even when legislators significantly boosted funding for the existing state grants in the 2005 legislative session, only about 90,700 Oregon students applied for them for the current academic year, down from 94,200 in September 2005.

Nesbitt said that could be because awareness of the grant program was low. He said it could take a few years before the revamped aid system will reach the targeted 55 percent of community college students, and 80 percent of university students.

The governor's higher education focus has been mainly on the affordability question, although his proposed budget for 2007-2009 includes hefty increases for campus construction and some targeted funding for wooing star faculty members and for reducing college class sizes.

Joni Finney, vice president of the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which publishes a biannual report card, said the Oregon plan sounds promising. But Finney also warned that in order for it to make a real difference, the state will need to clamp down on tuition hikes and keep the state's financial commitment to higher education's operating budgets steady, regardless of future fiscal twists and downturns.

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