ORONO – The University of Maine System trustees voted Monday to freeze tuition for a fourth straight year, pending approval of the governor’s proposed 1.7 percent increase in state funding.
“I’m very pleased that we’re able to hold tuition flat,” board chairman Sam Collins said after the trustees met at the University of Maine campus. “It has been a priority of all the trustees to make tuition affordable in Maine.”
The move keeps tuition and the mandatory fees at Orono, the system’s flagship campus, at $10,606, and makes the UMaine system something of an outlier nationally. In the last five years, Maine is the only state where tuition, adjusted for inflation, hasn’t increased, according to the College Board. The next lowest increase was 3 percent at Montana. Nationwide, in-state tuition has increased 17 percent over the same period at public four-year institutions, according to the board’s figures.
Rebecca Wyke, the system’s vice chancellor of finance and administration, said the governor’s budget, which increases state funding for the system for the first time in three years, made the freeze possible.
The governor’s proposed budget, which is being debated in Augusta, would increase state funding for the system by 1.7 percent, to $179.2 million, for the fiscal year ending June 2016; and by 1.93 percent, to $182.6 million, for the following fiscal year. That’s about half of what the system requested.
“Thank you so much,” UMaine junior Connor Scott told the trustees after the vote, noting that he and five of his siblings all attend system schools. “This is definitely a step in the right direction.”
UMaine Farmington sophomore Jamie Austin, 19, said the tuition freeze is critical for her.
“It means I can keep going,” said Austin, who is studying political science. She already gets some financial aid and does work-study, but has had to take out student loans to pay for her education.
Paying for college is “definitely challenging,” said Austin, who expects to graduate with about $25,000 in student loan debt. The average Maine college graduate has $30,000 in student debt, according to The Project on Student Debt.
Before the tuition freeze, the system had several years of annual tuition increases.
UMaine tuition remains higher than the national average of $9,139 annually. At Orono, in-state tuition and fees have increased from $6,394 in 2005 to $10,606 today. Tuition and fees at the University of Southern Maine are $8,540 a year.
At the current price, tuition and fees alone make up about 18 percent of Maine’s median household income of $50,487, officials said.
“It’s becoming almost a mortgage payment,” Trustees Shawn Moody said of tuition. “It’s tough (to freeze tuition), but it’s absolutely worthwhile. We have to do it.”
Whether the freeze could continue in future years depends on many budget factors, including the state appropriation, system spokesman Dan Demeritt said.
“When the day comes that tuition goes up, the trustees are committed to tying it to inflation,” he said. “We don’t want it to grow faster than Mainers’ ability to pay.”
The decision to freeze tuition means the trustees plan to take $9 million from emergency reserves to balance the system’s $519 million budget for the fiscal year beginning in July.
The trustees will take a final vote on the budget and the tuition at their May 17-18 meeting.
Last year’s $529 million system budget required using $11.4 million in emergency funds and cutting 157 positions.
Officials say the years of ongoing budget deficits have been the result of flat state funding, declining enrollment and three years of tuition freezes.
According to the proposed budget, $2.6 million in emergency and reserve funds would go to UMaine Presque Isle; $1.5 million to UMaine Fort Kent; $1.5 million to USM; $1.3 million to UMaine Machias; $1 million to the system office; and $561,000 to UMaine Farmington.
UMaine Augusta and Orono do not have deficits.
Aside from state allocations, tuition is the system’s other major source of revenue.
The emergency funds would come from reserves and a budget stabilization fund created in 2010 for the purpose of offsetting operating shortfalls at the campuses. Last year was the first time the budget stabilization funds were used.
Also Monday, the trustees approved a plan to sell multiple properties around the system, including system headquarters at 16 Central St. in Bangor. Also approved for sale was a University of Maine property of about 30 acres of undeveloped land with road frontage on Stillwater Avenue in Old Town, and Kimball Hall on the University of Maine at Machias campus, which houses faculty offices and a small dining area.
The trustees also approved a plan for USM to explore the possible sale or lease of several single-family residences known as the “white houses.” The board had been scheduled to vote Monday on whether to authorize the sale of the buildings, but outgoing USM President David Flanagan told trustees Sunday that they should consider holding on to the land while either selling or leasing the buildings.
Also Monday, system officials reported that spring 2015 enrollment systemwide was 27,231 students, down 3 percent from last year at this time, and down 9.5 percent over the last five years.