UMaine seeks to enroll more out-of-state students with offer of discounted tuition

The University of Maine is attempting to attract more students from other Northeastern states by offering discounted tuition.

The Boston Globe reported that qualifying students from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will pay the same tuition and fees at the university in Orono as they would at their home state’s flagship institution.

Wendy Lindsay, director of the regional student program at the New England Board of Higher Education, told the Globe that she hasn’t seen any other program like it at a New England public college or university, but it wouldn’t surprise her to see it happening more.

Maine’s flagship university is also dropping the tuition for qualifying students in other states by $13,200, but not to the state’s flagship price for in-state students.

Jeffrey Hecker, UMaine’s provost, told the Globe that the university needs to attract more students from out of state to keep its enrollment up. The number of undergraduates decreased by 0.4% this year after increasing the previous two years.

The new initiative comes at a time when in-state enrollment across all University of Maine System campuses is falling. At the start of the fall semester, in-state enrollment was down 4.2%, from 24,758 to 23,707 students, according to a Portland Press Herald story in September. Overall enrollment was down down 2.7%.

At UMaine, about 30% of the student body is made up of out-of-state students.

To qualify for a flagship match at UMaine, students must have a high school GPA of at least 3.0 and SAT scores of 1050 or higher, according to the Globe. Other students who don’t meet that criteria will qualify for smaller awards.

Tuition and fees at UMaine for out-of-state undergraduate students total about $29,000, not including costs for housing or supplies.

UMaine implements waitlist for the first time in 'recent history'