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By PAUL CARRIER
MaineToday Media, Inc. 11/26/2007

For many students, the former technical schools in southern and central Maine are proving to be an attractive alternative to USM. And that has fueled a drop in the number of part-time students at the university. But enrollment figures in the University of Maine System and the Maine Community College System also tell a larger story.

While the link between USM's budget woes and the community colleges has been widely reported, there also appears to be a broader relationship between shrinking state universities and robust community colleges.

Just as USM's part-time enrollment has dropped while the number of students at nearby community colleges has grown, so too have state universities in central Maine seen their enrollment slip as community colleges in Auburn and Fairfield have recorded significant increases in student population.

In fact, the three state universities that have suffered the biggest enrollment drops since 2002, the year before Maine's technical colleges became community colleges, are located near the community colleges that have grown the most since 2002.

"I don't think anybody, from the university system to state government and beyond, expected the explosive growth in the community college system," said John Fitzsimmons, president of the seven-college Maine Community College System.

The public probably does not realize that the effect of that on the university system extends beyond USM, said Margaret Weston, who chairs the University of Maine System's board of trustees.

At least in the short term, Weston said, there are "regional pockets" in Maine where the popularity of the community colleges is shrinking enrollment in the seven-university system.

Since 2002, the state universities that have seen the sharpest drops in enrollment are the University of Maine at Augusta (down 10.8 percent); the University of Southern Maine, with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston (8.1 percent); and the University of Maine at Farmington (5.4 percent).

At the same time, the community colleges that have recorded the most growth are located in South Portland (up 79 percent), Auburn (up 40.9 percent), Fairfield (up 37.5 percent) and Wells (up 13 percent).

It would be simplistic to suggest that the only reason some state universities are shrinking is because community colleges are siphoning students.

For one thing, some state universities are growing and some community colleges have lost students.

Moreover, officials insist there are other factors that help explain the financial woes of some state universities, such as high energy costs at USM.

And total enrollment in the community colleges has grown much faster than the overall drop within the University of Maine System.

That means the community colleges are not simply diverting students from state universities, but also attracting students who might not otherwise continue their education at all.

Still, educators in both systems agree that the community colleges are luring students who, in the old days, might have chosen a state university over what was then known as a technical college.

That's largely because the four-year-old community colleges, unlike their predecessors, offer an associate's degree in liberal studies, in addition to specialized career training.

Fitzsimmons said that degree is attractive to students who do not want to commit to a four-year program, as well as to students who would have steered clear of the old technical colleges because they do not know what occupation they want to pursue.

With tuition at about half that of the state universities, the community colleges "became the low-cost entry point" for many college-bound students, Fitzsimmons said. "It was as if somebody put a light on" and Mainers suddenly discovered they had a new educational option, he said.

Although the university system is trying to cope with faster-than-expected growth at the community colleges, officials at both systems insist they are not in competition because the untapped market is large, its needs are diverse and the two educational systems are filling increasingly different roles.

Only 37 percent of Mainers between the ages of 25 and 64 have college degrees, compared to 46 percent in New England as a whole, according to Henry Bourgeois of the Maine Compact for Higher Education.

The New England average is expected to hit 56 percent in the next 10 to 15 years, Bourgeois said, so "we need to raise all the boats way up" by boosting enrollment and graduation rates at all of Maine's colleges and universities. Fitzsimmons noted that the university system decided several years ago to "get out of the two-year (degree) business." So public higher education in Maine differentiates more clearly now between university-based four-year and graduate-level programs and two-year community-college programs. "What you're seeing is the natural evolution of higher education in Maine," he said.

For example, Weston said the University of Maine at Augusta, which traditionally functioned as a de facto community college, is transforming itself into a four-year university.

UMA now has more four-year programs than associate-degree programs, Weston said, and a growing percentage of its faculty have doctoral degrees.

At USM, Pattenaude said recently, "our goal was to change us from a highly part-time campus to more of a full-time institution."

Full-time enrollment has been growing, he said, "so that part of the plan worked. But the part-time decline was way more than we expected."

USM ran deficits in each of the last three years, including a $3.5 million shortfall last year. A $2.6 million deficit is projected this year.

In the university system as a whole, full-time enrollment has grown since 2002, while part-time enrollment has dropped.

The key now is to help both systems grow by working together to raise awareness of the value of a college education, Weston said.

"The community colleges are doing exactly what they were designed to do, and appropriately so," said Joseph Wood, the interim president at the University of Southern Maine.

If the state can boost the percentage of high school graduates who earn university degrees and get more community college graduates to seek four-year degrees, Wood said, "we can stabilize, if not increase, enrollments."

"There is enough work in Maine" for both systems, said Fitzsimmons, who noted that Maine still has the smallest community college system in the country.

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