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Co-Enrollment Program Streamlines Pathway to UMaine and Machias for Community College Students

BANGOR, Maine — On Thursday, April 18, the University of Maine (UMaine); its regional campus, the University of Maine at Machias (UMaine Machias); and the Maine Community College System (MCCS) signed a memorandum of understanding to formalize Black Bear Advantage, an innovative co-enrollment program that will benefit community college students statewide and ultimately grow the size and skill of the Maine workforce.

Black Bear Advantage creates a seamless pathway with minimal loss of community college credit for students transferring to UMaine or its regional campus, UMaine Machias, following the successful completion of an associate degree from a participating MCCS college.

“We are grateful for this partnership with the Maine Community College System, which promises to expand academic opportunities and enrich the futures of Maine students. This collaboration builds upon the solid educational foundations laid by community colleges, empowering students to broaden their horizons,” said UMaine President and Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Joan Ferrini-Mundy. “As Maine employers increasingly seek out individuals with a four-year degree, Black Bear Advantage comes at an advantageous time. This co-enrollment program will support the continuing development and growth of tomorrow’s innovators, problem solvers and leaders who will carry Maine into the future.”

Students who pursue the Black Bear Advantage will receive multiple benefits, including co-enrollment and a guaranteed next step to UMaine or UMaine Machias. While attending a participating MCCS college full time, students will take one in-person or online course at UMaine or UMaine Machias each semester to fulfill lower-level degree requirements for the specific degree program. These courses will be counted toward the participating MCCS college and UMaine or UMaine Machias degree programs. After successfully completing an associate degree, students can transfer to UMaine or UMaine Machias to complete their bachelor’s degree with minimal to no credit loss. This program will allow students to earn two degrees in four years.

“We know many of our students transfer to and thrive at UMaine. This new co-enrollment agreement puts community college students on the path to UMaine or UMaine Machias at the start of their academic experience, it welcomes community college students from across the state and it streamlines the path to transfer for them,” said MCCS Vice President and Chief Academic Officer Janet Sortor. “This unique partnership between the universities and Maine’s community colleges provides collaborative support and resources to students to help them achieve their goals.”

As part of the agreement, UMaine and UMaine Machias will also offer academic advising and transfer support, an accelerated transfer process, a waiver of application fees and priority registration. The agreement will also offer a co-enrollment scholarship of $2,000 when students transfer from a participating MCCS college following the successful completion of the associate degree and begin full-time studies.

The Black Bear Advantage program underscores our commitment to providing accessible pathways to higher education for students across Maine,” said UMaine Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost John Volin. “We are excited to work closely with Maine’s community colleges to empower students and facilitate their academic and career aspirations.”

The program’s initial phase will focus on degree programs with existing articulation agreements between participating MCCS colleges, UMaine and UMaine Machias. These programs encompass a wide range of disciplines, including business, engineering technology, education, social work and psychology.

Maine’s public universities and community colleges have a long tradition of working together. The two public systems are doing so now more closely than ever before given the needs of Maine students and employers and the institutions’ imperative to achieve efficiencies through partnership. There are now more than 180 formal articulation agreements that allow MCCS students to transfer into the University of Maine System (UMS) and have all their Maine community college credits count. The two public systems prioritize the development of these pathways based on state workforce needs and by identifying which UMS programs MCCS students most want.

For a complete list of the individual program articulations supported by the Black Bear Advantage program for each of the participating MCCS colleges, please visit the UMaine and UMaine Machias transfer agreement website.

About the Maine Community College System: Maine’s seven community colleges have the lowest tuition and fees in New England and serve more than 30,000 students a year through early college, short-term workforce training, associate degree, certificate, and advanced certificate programs.

About the University of Maine: As Maine’s only public research university and a Carnegie R1 top-tier research institution, the University of Maine advances learning and discovery through excellence and innovation. Founded in 1865 in Orono, UMaine is the state’s land, sea and space grant university with a regional campus at the University of Maine at Machias. Our students come from all over the world and work with faculty conducting fieldwork around the globe — from the North Atlantic to the Antarctic. Located on Marsh Island in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation with UMaine Machias located in the homeland of the Passamaquoddy Nation, UMaine’s statewide mission is to foster an environment that creates tomorrow’s leaders. As the state’s flagship institution, UMaine offers nearly 200 degree programs through which students can earn bachelor’s, master’s, professional master’s and doctoral degrees as well as graduate certificates. For more information about UMaine and UMaine Machias, visit umaine.edu/about/quick-facts/ and machias.edu/about-umm/umm-facts/.

Maine Community College Students Name to All-Maine Academic Team

AUGUSTA, ME – Nineteen Maine community college students have been named to the All-Maine Academic Team in recognition of their outstanding academic achievement, leadership, and service.

The students receiving the award and a $500 scholarship from the MCCS Board of Trustees, are:

Chelsey Chapman, Pittston, Central Maine Community College in Auburn.

• Jonathan Gosselin, Topsham, Central Maine Community College.
• Brianna Proctor, Wales, Central Maine Community College.
• Mason Rogers, Kensington, NH, Central Maine Community College.
• Katahdin Javner, Chester, Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor.
• Elizabeth Sivret, Calais, Eastern Maine Community College.
• Kiera Clark, Skowhegan, Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield/Hinckley.
• Catalina Fernandez-Grant, Belfast, Kennebec Valley Community College.
• Luz Maria Seda Libby, Palermo, Kennebec Valley Community College.
• Crystal MacGown, Bath, Kennebec Valley Community College.
• Lucas Castles, Gorham, Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle.
• Troy Hipsley, Houlton, Northern Maine Community College.
• Jalen Lucas, Edinburgh, Trinidad & Tobago, Northern Maine Community College.
• Islakeno Mahabir, Enterprise, Trinidad & Tobago, Northern Maine Community College.
• Destiny Eppinger, Oxford, Southern Maine Community College in South Portland/Brunswick.
• Fatimah Lamloom, Portland, Southern Maine Community College.
• Brandon Marshall, Scarborough, Southern Maine Community College.
• Kayla Taylor, Raymond, Washington County Community College in Calais.
• Amanda Kenney, Wells, York County Community College, in Wells.

In addition, Catalina Fernandez-Grant (KVCC) and Elizabeth Sivret (EMCC) have been named Maine New Century Scholars for earning the highest scores in the state on their All-USA Academic Team applications.

Sivret has been named the 2024 Maine New Century Transfer Pathway Scholar and will receive a $2,250 scholarship.

Fernandez-Grant is the 2024 Maine New Century Workforce Pathway Scholar and will receive a $1,500 scholarship.

Katahdin Javner (EMCC) was one of only 50 students nationwide named a Coca-Cola Academic Team Gold Scholar and will receive a $1,500 scholarship.

The New Century Pathway Scholarship program is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Foundation, The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the American Association of Community Colleges, and Phi Theta Kappa. Only one New Century Transfer and Workforce Scholar is selected from each state.

The All-Maine Academic Team is a program of Phi Theta Kappa, an international honor society for two-year colleges. Students are nominated and selected for the team by their college.

$15M in Federal Funds Invested in Health Care Tech, Trade Labs, and Student Housing at Maine’s Community Colleges

AUGUSTA, ME – Maine’s community colleges received almost $15 million in recent federal funding, with more than half of the funds directed at adding health care training facilities and technology at multiple colleges.

The funding, included in the federal budget package signed by President Joe Biden over the weekend, is particularly timely since Maine’s community colleges recently doubled their nursing program capacity and significantly expanded short-term workforce training programs in health care to meet industry demand.

“We deeply appreciate the work by U.S. Senator Susan Collins and U.S. Senator Angus King in securing these funds to train more health care workers on cutting-edge equipment,” said David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System (MCCS). “There is such a desperate need right now in Maine for health care workers, and we’re seeing high demand for our health care programs.”

The federal funding will also be used to add virtual reality teaching tools, expand a plumbing lab at one college, provide temporary housing for students enrolled in short-term workforce training programs, and expand high-demand academic programs.

“Maine’s congressional delegation works tirelessly to assure that Maine’s community colleges have the resources we need to educate and train Maine workers. I would especially like to thank Senator Collins who spearheaded the complex budget negotiations to bring this funding to fruition,” Daigler said.

The federal funding will go toward the following projects:

Central Maine Community College:

• Expand Kirk Hall by 7,200 square feet to train an additional 100 nurses annually, add a surgical technology program, update the science lab, improve the exercise science and physical fitness specialist programs, and enhance short-term workforce training programs in healthcare. ($3.25 million) Collins

Eastern Maine Community College:

• Instructional Space and Professional Development: Improve instructional areas and curriculum enhancements by adding new simulation, laboratory and classroom equipment; use funds to support faculty training and professional development. ($1.65 million) Collins

Kennebec Valley Community College:

• Enhanced Radiology Lab: Improve existing lab to enhance simulation tools and improve training for students in Radiologic Technician program. ($513,000) Collins
• Expanded Plumbing Lab: Expand and update plumbing lab to improve tools and expand capacity to increase the number of students in program. ($803,000) Collins

Northern Maine Community College:

• Andrews Hall Renovation: Renovate Andrews Hall to expand temporary housing for short-term workforce training students, helping to keep those in the industry trained and credentialed. ($500K) Golden
• Diesel Equipment and Technology: Expand the diesel hydraulic program to enroll 36 students to meet workforce demands. ($410,000) Collins and King
• Technology Upgrades: Extend warranties for five human patient simulators, upgrade wireless technology and install fiber between buildings to support advanced technology training across campus. ($550,000) Collins and King

Southern Maine Community College:

• Health Care Simulation Lab: Build a new simulation lab to provide health care students with realistic hands-on technology. ($4.1 million) Collins
• Maine Fire Service Institute storage facility: Facility to store and maintain safety equipiment and teaching props for current equipment and future equipment needs. ($500,000) Collins

Washington County Community College:

• Technology Upgrades, Professional Development, Virtual Reality Technology: Purchase high-tech equipment such as virtual reality technology for labs and classrooms and provide professional development in the tools. ($1.63 million) Collins and King

York County Community College:

• Equipment purchase, Technology Upgrades, Supplies: Investments in new welding machines, pipe-fitting equipment, and testing equipment for the Sanford Instructional Site; new virtual reality lab and virtual reality training tools for the trades and multiple other programs; updated equipment for Cyber Security program; and supplies and equipment for dental, nursing, and vet tech programs. ($986,000) Collins

More Access Means More Enrollment for Maine Community Colleges

A recent report shows a surge in enrollment across Maine Community College System campuses from 2022 to 2023 and credits the state’s Free College Scholarship program.

Nearly half of the students enrolled at Maine Community College System campuses during the 2022–23 academic year took part in the state’s Free College Scholarship program.
According to a recent report, more than 6,550 out of approximately 14,200 students attending one of the seven MCCS institutions were enrolled through the state initiative, which launched just months before classes began in fall 2022.

Ryan Morgan, CEO of the Campaign for Free College Tuition, was thrilled but not surprised by the program’s success. He said it was designed to be “as accessible as possible” for the target population—students who earned a high school degree or GED during the pandemic and experienced dramatic disruptions to their education as they entered the workforce.

“The more accessible the program is, by definition, the more interest there is and the higher enrollment is going to be,” Morgan said.

And it’s paying off. Although the Maine Free College Scholarship wasn’t the only factor in increased enrollment, MCCS administrators attribute much of the 12 percent growth in fall 2022 and 16 percent jump in fall 2023 to the new scholarship program.

National data suggest most community colleges have had a far more modest comeback from their pandemic enrollment woes than those in the Maine system—two-year colleges nationally saw an average of just 0.5 percent enrollment growth between spring 2022 and 2023. A similar free college program introduced in New Mexico in 2020 only led to a 7 percent enrollment increase in its first year.

But enrollment in Maine has skyrocketed and even exceeded pre-pandemic levels, reaching 19,477 students in fall 2023. Some MCCS institutions now have more students than they can fit on campus. Central Maine Community College, for example, had to lease out an entire hotel to house some of its students.

Morgan and others believe the program is on track to gain longer-term support from the state because of the impressive results.

“All signs point in the right direction for the governor and state Legislature to renew the program,” he said.

‘Re-Bolstering’ a Generation

Although a growing number of states across the country have introduced free community college programs to counter declining enrollment rates and workforce shortages, Maine’s is one of a few programs specifically aimed at traditional-age college students rather than returning adult learners.

First proposed in February 2022, the program was backed by $20 million in state funding and had bipartisan support. It guaranteed that any Maine resident who had or was scheduled to graduate high school between 2020 and 2023 could pursue a two-year degree or one-year certification without paying a dime for tuition.

MCCS president David Daigler believes getting recent high school graduates whose lives were most disrupted by the pandemic into college will have ripple effects on the state’s economy.

Maine has the oldest population in the nation, with a median age of 45.1, and for every 10 workers ages 60 to 64 who are exiting the workforce, there are only seven students ages 15 to 19 who will soon enter it. The proportion of students who opted out of college rose from an average of about 40 percent to 50 percent during the pandemic, Daigler said. The percentage of young men was even higher, with rates as high as 60 percent.

But Daigler said the Free College Scholarship is “re-bolstering” the next generation.

Enrollment in skills-based programs shot up 300 percent, from 3,000 students in 2021–22 to 12,000 in 2022–23, according to the report. And the percentage of students enrolling in trade occupation programs climbed from 71 percent to 81 percent.

“The modern workforce requires skills,” he said. “When you get those skills that come through a community college, you’ve now got an opportunity to make a difference, not just for your family, not just for yourself. That continues generation after generation.”

Some University of Maine System faculty and administrators fear the free college program is pulling students away from the state’s public four-year campuses—which experienced a 5 percent decrease in enrollment from fall 2021 to 2022. But advocates of the Free College Scholarship believe that while the program may be a factor in declining enrollment in the university system, it’s not the only factor. Others include general demographic shifts and doubts about the value of college. Supporters of the program also hope it will open the door for more transfers to four-year colleges.

Even Daigler had initial hesitations about introducing a free college program, especially because MCCS already had the lowest tuition in New England. But he got fully onboard after seeing such positive outcomes.

“I personally am a convert,” he said. “When we lift a person’s income, we also increase the income taxes that they pay and reduce their need for public assistance … This is a positive investment. It’s not just a social good.”

Hopes for a Permanent Program

The program was already granted a preliminary extension with an additional $15 million of state funding in July 2023 to extend the benefits to students graduating as late as 2025.
Education advocates hope the scholarship will be made permanent.

Piet Lammert, longtime public high school counselor and the founder of DiriGo!, an independent college application consulting business, credits the scholarship for changing the perception of community college. Although many students already receive financial aid to help pay for college from other state, federal and third-party grants, he believes there is power in the word “free.”

“A lot of the kids that enrolled because of the Free College Scholarship would have qualified for Pell Grants anyway, and it would have been free for them regardless,” Lammert said. “But this new sense that college was immediately accessible, regardless of income, got people in the door that wouldn’t have gone before.”

Data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center confirm Lammert’s observations. Nearly 11.5 percent of the MCCS students enrolled through the free college program in 2022 had graduated from high school in 2020 or 2021 and worked for at least a year before going to college.

Lammert said public perceptions of community college as “less than” a four-year university, combined with hesitation about affordability, were keeping students from enrolling. But making the scholarship permanent would allow students and parents alike to count on community college as a viable, credible, surefire post–high school option.

“When you put your kiddo on the school bus to pre-K that very first day, if you know that the state has got you covered through grade 14 … that’s so empowering,” he said.
Governor Janet Mills, who sponsored the Free College Scholarship, is pleased by the first year’s report.

“In just two short years, our initiative has empowered thousands of young people to earn a degree or a certificate and put them on the path to a good-paying job, creating new economic opportunities and brighter futures for Maine students,” she said in an email. “Maine is strengthening our workforce and ensuring that the cost of higher education is not a barrier to success.”

But Heather Johnson, Maine’s commissioner of economic and community development, said although the governor’s cabinet is “really encouraged” by the recent report, it is “hard to know” at this point if the free college program will be expanded further.

She added that data on student outcomes in the workforce will be telling—the first class of two-year free college learners are scheduled to graduate in May.

“That will be helpful as well in adding to the data that is showing the positive momentum of this program,” she said. “But historically, we have absolutely seen the value of these programs both in productivity per worker as well as wage growth.”

“The administration will try to work closely with the community college system and the Legislature to determine what that path forward could be,” she added.

Opinion: Free community college has created a new wave of Maine students

Maine’s free community college program has helped remove inertia and fear of education costs.

Maine’s free community college was launched with bipartisan support and the stated goal of “ensuring that high school students … have the opportunity to get a tuition-free education and enter Maine’s workforce with a reliable, good-paying, and in-demand job.”

And that’s exactly what it does. It wasn’t designed to cover all costs, but rather to relieve the burden of paying tuition on top of those costs. This program is a great first step down that road for recent high school graduates. I want to make sure that important information that may have gotten lost in the Dec. 10 Press Herald article on the state’s free community college tuition program is shared (“Maine’s poorest students still face burdens, despite state’s free community college program”).

The Finance Authority of Maine, as a state college affordability agency, has witnessed how free community college has captured the attention of students who did not believe they could afford any type of education beyond high school, enabling new pathways for them to pursue. Quite simply, these students would never have looked at college were it not for the widespread nature of this program. With an average 14% increase in community college students who qualified for a Pell grant, Maine community colleges have experiencing double-digit growth in enrollment by this low-income population over the last two years – despite lingering effects of the pandemic and other headwinds facing higher education attainment.

It’s also worth noting that Maine led the nation with the largest increase of high school seniors filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid during 2023. While FAME knows that hardworking college-access professionals across the state, including our own, deserve significant credit for this increase, we also know that Maine’s free community college program helped remove inertia and fear of education costs.

Most students work hard to stitch together multiple grants and aid, not to mention working, to help pay for college and cover costs beyond tuition. This is why FAME works every day to help Maine students and families afford education and training after high school. The free community college scholarship still allows any student to bring outside scholarships to the table after their free community college scholarship has been received. This means there is an opportunity for all students to have room and board, books and supplies or other education expenses at least partially covered by scholarships. FAME shares extensive information about how to find scholarships on our website and as part of our college access outreach counseling.

Free community college is one of many programs intended to support growing Maine’s skilled workforce which also helps Maine people establish a secure personal economic future. For example, the Maine State Grant, Maine’s largest need-based grant program administered by FAME represents an annual investment of $27 million to support approximately 14,000 Maine students attending the broad array of higher education institutions in Maine, not just community college. This is no small investment and represents a steady stream of bipartisan support from the Maine Legislature, which has more than doubled the program’s funding since 2015. FAME agrees there is more that can be done for our financially disadvantaged students, and we will continue to work collaboratively with the Maine Legislature and gubernatorial administrations to address college access and affordability in Maine.

FAME is in its fifth decade of service to the state and its fourth in service of education advancement. It has always been and will remain part of our mission to explore more robust ways to support college access and affordability across the education and training spectrum. We applaud the efforts of free community college and similar programs launched by the University of Maine System, such as the Pine Tree State Pledge and the Downeast Promise Scholarship. We can all work together to get the message to students and families that there is money available to help with the cost of education and training after high school – free college programs make the collective impact of those additional resources even more meaningful.

Boom Time for Maine’s Community Colleges

Enrollment in the state’s two-year system hit an all-time high this fall, despite national declines and the state’s aging population. What’s their secret?

Central Maine Community College was struck this fall by a rare problem among colleges in the demographically challenged state: it had more students than it could fit on campus.

Enrollment at CMCC grew by 22 percent this fall, to 4,121. It was the largest increase in the college’s 60-year history and the first time the total student population exceeded 4,000.

“The numbers were looking really strong in the spring, and all these students seemed to be coming: they paid the deposit, they took steps to commit,” said CMCC president Betsy Libby. By early summer it dawned on Libby and the rest of the leadership team that they would be faced with a problem they’d never had before.

“We realized, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a housing wait list,'” she said. “‘We’d better prepare.'”

So CMCC leased out an entire hotel, the cozy 128-bed Center Street Value Inn, located about a five-minute drive from the college’s lakeside Auburn campus. Since it was reserved solely for CMCC students, the college even decorated it like a dorm, branding it Mustang Hall after the college’s mascot. Staff also set up amenities like a common kitchen and volleyball nets and hired a new resident assistant to live there with the students.

Mustang Hall is a by-product of a remarkable 16 percent enrollment surge across the Maine Community College System this fall, up to 19,477 students from 16,792 in the spring—which was itself the result of a 12 percent boost from fall 2022. Some campuses saw enormous growth, such as CMCC and the small but burgeoning Washington County Community College, which grew by 36 percent. Others had more modest growth. But enrollments declined at only one of the system’s seven campuses: Northern Maine Community College, which lost nine students in total.

Community college enrollments nationwide grew slightly in the spring, by about 0.5 percent over the previous year. But Maine’s enrollment surge isn’t just inching back toward pre-pandemic levels, which were on the decline; it’s the system’s largest-ever influx of students, producing its largest systemwide student body. The last time the numbers came close to this fall’s was 2011, during the higher education boom that followed the Great Recession, when enrollment topped out just shy of 18,000 students.
Even more surprising is that the increase is made up largely of traditional-age students, according to Maine Community College System president David Daigler. Maine is the oldest state in the country, and it is only getting older: the median age of residents is 45, and in 2022, less than 18 percent of its population was under 18, according to Census data.

So what’s the Maine community college system’s playbook? And could it work in other states with similar demographic challenges?

More Than ‘Just Free College’

The most direct cause of the enrollment boom, Daigler said, is the system’s free college program, launched during the pandemic and extended this summer to apply to the high school graduating classes of 2024 and 2025. After the first year, Daigler said word of mouth helped boost the program’s impact and visibility, and he hopes that will continue to compound.

Daigler said he was surprised to find that the students who took advantage of the state’s Free College Scholarship were not all low income and eligible for federal Pell Grants; many belonged to the socioeconomic strata just above—lower-middle-class residents who were interested in pursuing a degree but balked at the idea of going into debt or losing out on work opportunities in a hot job market. Those students may end up qualifying for Pell Grants under revised FAFSA rules that will go into effect this application cycle, but for now Daigler said they are largely overlooked and untapped by higher ed institutions.

While the free college program had a “profound effect,” Daigler said, it’s “just the tip of the iceberg” in explaining the surge in Maine community college enrollments.

“It was the beacon that really got us all this attention, but it’s not as simple as just free college,” he said. “‘Free’ is not a magic word.”

The system also focused on developing workforce pathway programs, from certificates to associate degrees, that would feed the state’s starving labor force—especially in areas like health services and engineering. System leaders removed requirements for what Daigler calls “gatekeeper courses” in math and biology that can sometimes turn students off from pursuing those fields at an early stage. And they trained faculty to manage more students who might be underprepared but who “have an enormous appetite to start learning.”

Concurrent enrollment among high school students also played a large role, as it has in many community college enrollment success stories since the pandemic. Libby said that more than one-third of the new students at CMCC this fall are dual-enrolled high schoolers, who she hopes will matriculate as full-time college students next year; in 2022, 19 percent of concurrently enrolled students converted, but Libby believes that number has plenty of room to grow. She’s aiming for about a 30 percent yield.

She added that CMCC and the other community colleges that benefited most from last year’s 12 percent enrollment boost invested heavily in student support services to prevent the gains from melting away. CMCC hired additional advisers, extended hours for the student center and expanded student activity offerings. They even invested in more space in the dining halls and more options for meals.

“The key is not to only focus on growth,” she said. “If you’re just replacing students you lose with new students, that’s not growth at all.”

Daigler and Libby agree that the biggest key to building enrollment is to tailor the education to the tight job market rather than treating college and work as competing forces.

“Job-training programs have been remarkably successful for us, and we try to get into high schools to make sure students know before even graduating the connection between a degree here and their job prospects,” Daigler said. “The market is hot, but instead of letting that detract from enrollment, we want to say, ‘Hey, this is another reason you should come.'”

Daigler said the system’s growth is “absolutely” replicable in other states struggling to overcome the coinciding challenges of a pandemic-driven enrollment hole, aging populations and declining public interest in higher education.

John Fink, senior research associate at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, agreed. He said Maine is an example of the outsize impact on enrollment a free college program can have when coupled with a robust pathway program—among both high school graduates and community college students looking to convert their two-year degrees into baccalaureates.

“The big takeaway from Maine, for me, is that it’s going to take not just a promise to students [of free college] but a pathway to get them there,” he said.

Can a Two-Year Tide Lift Four-Year Ships?

Some fear that Maine’s two-year colleges may be benefiting at the expense of the state’s four-year institutions, which continue to struggle with traditional enrollment. Illustrating the point, Southern Maine Community College—the system’s largest institution, which saw a 20 percent bump in enrollment this fall—is renting out 140 beds from the neighboring four-year University of Southern Maine, for instance.

But community college leaders in Maine don’t see themselves in competition with four-year institutions. If anything, Libby said, they’re hoping enrollment spikes at two-year colleges contain the seeds of a transfer surge to their four-year counterparts in the near future.

Maine’s four-year colleges may be hoping for the same. Libby said a USM transfer recruiter has been on the CMCC campus nearly every day this year, setting up shop in the student center and talking to students about how they can continue their education toward a bachelor’s degree.

“Our growth is coming from a totally different population: those students who otherwise wouldn’t be attending college at all,” Libby said. “I still very much see us as a feeder school.”

Fink said he doesn’t see the two systems in competition with each other, either. The “massive dual-enrollment on-ramp” set up for two-year institutions could also persuade more high school students to attend four-year colleges, he said. And the system’s missionary approach to recruitment—convincing high schoolers of the value in pursuing some kind of postsecondary degree—may have wider-reaching benefits than directing high school graduates down specific degree paths.

“The big concern in Maine and the Midwest and across the country, really, is with changing demographics,” Fink said. “I think the project Maine’s community colleges are really working on is changing the culture.”