Maine’s congressional delegation has sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, urging her to consider a grant application from the University of Maine at Presque Isle that was rejected due to a formatting error.
The school applied to receive funding from the Upward Bound program, which helps low-income, first generation students go to college. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says despite the school’s track record of success, its application was deemed ineligible because of a spacing error on two infographics.
“This is a perfect example of why people are so frustrated with government, when a federal agency decides that it will not consider an application on its merits, but instead, is fixated on how it is formatted,” she says.
According to the university, the Education Department’s decision risks denying the academic goals of nearly 1,000 Maine students over the next five years.
