Douglas Rooks was right in his Sept. 5 column when he said the University of Maine System (UMS) yields the State’s best return on investment, despite being inadequately funded since its formation in 1968. 

No other institution recruits and retains more talent in Maine and produces as many professionals to power the state’s economy and serve its citizens and communities. 

Rooks was also right in recognizing the vital role of our flagship in drawing federal grants to Maine, especially since it achieved the top-tier R1 Carnegie Classification in 2022. In FY24, the University of Maine brought in $225 million in research and development (R&D) funding while shaping solutions to critical challenges like climate change and contamination from PFAS and helping hundreds of small businesses here start, scale and innovate for the future. 

And Rooks was right in noting that recent investments to modernize UMS — including a new University of Southern Maine residence hall in Portland and a relocation downtown in that same vibrant city for the growing University of Maine School of Law — are now paying dividends toward our ability to attract more students and private giving.

But Rooks is wrong in his characterization of the Governor’s commitment to UMS. 

In fact, it is because of policies and investments championed by Gov. Janet Mills that Maine’s public universities are increasing student enrollment and state impact.

Early in her first term, the Mills Administration made talent and innovation central to the state’s long-overdue economic strategy. In doing so, the Governor elevated the importance of our System, which delivers talent and innovation and can most drive the growth of Maine’s workforce, wages and productivity.

Her budgets have bolstered that plan’s priorities, including through significant UMS investment.

Thanks to Gov. Mills and the highly engaged trustees she has appointed to our board, bipartisan support from the Legislature and our own cost containment, Maine’s public universities have maintained our region-leading affordability, including by holding tuition flat twice during the pandemic. For the first time since the Great Recession, the State is now shouldering an equal share of our System’s operating expenses as students and their families. 

Ongoing State funding for public university R&D led by the R1 UMaine, while still behind what is needed to compete in the global innovation economy, has increased 25% under Gov. Mills, as has its rate of return — now more than 6:1. 

And the capital projects Rooks correctly calls out as being so transformational to our campuses and local communities were possible because of infrastructure investment provided by the Governor and Legislature, including for the University of Maine at Farmington’s new Sweatt-Winter Early Care and Education Center, which benefited from both the Gov. Mills’ Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan and Congressionally Directed Spending secured by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. 

Most importantly, we need to acknowledge that the State fully funding its 55% share of public PK-12 education as well as free community college tuition is good for Maine and good for its public universities, which are entirely dependent on a strong educational pipeline. 

This fall semester, UMS welcomed more than 650 transfer students from the Maine Community College System (MCCS) — up nearly 50% from prior to the free tuition program. Our new guaranteed admission for MCCS graduates, which Gov. Mills helped to announce, will only expand UMS enrollment among those with associate degrees who want to further their education, employment and earnings. 

Maine still has more to do to make up for decades of underfunding of our public universities, which are burdened by $1.6 billion in deferred maintenance and receive less State appropriation per student than community colleges here and many four-year peers nationally. In the meantime, when we recognize our System’s progress, we also need to recognize the partners who make it possible, chief among them Maine’s chief executive.

S&P certainly did last month when it affirmed our AA- credit rating. The global rating agency concluded, “Management is optimistic that the state will remain highly supportive of higher education and believes that it will have the financial capabilities to do so given the state’s improving economic outlook. We believe that continued, growing support from the state for operating and capital needs is imperative to the system’s long-term success.” 

They got that right.

As Gov. Mills prepares her final biennial budget, we look forward to working with her and the 132nd Legislature to leverage past investment to further propel our System and Maine’s people and economy forward.