AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage says the University of Maine System trustees are on the right track with their plan to freeze in-state tuition for two years, but they will have to do better to get his support for maintaining state appropriations for the system at the current $176 million a year.
“They [have] got to show me a heck of a lot more than just freezing tuition,” he said in an interview. “They [have] got to show me they are moving in the right direction.”
LePage said the university system needs to do more to attract out-of-state students, who pay a higher rate of tuition, and show the system is improving. But he also had praise for the system’s participation in his recent trade mission to China.
“The University of Maine was part of the trade mission which I thought was a very solid move in the right direction,” he said.
LePage said he would propose a counteroffer to the UMS board of trustees of his support for level funding “and maybe a little bit more” if they would freeze tuition for a longer period of time than the two years proposed.
“I will freeze and maybe increase appropriations if they lock [in] tuition for every freshman class for four years,” he said. “In other words, whatever the tuition is for a freshman, it stays for four consecutive years until he gets his degree.”
At Monday’s trustees meeting, the board voted to freeze tuition at current levels for two years if the state maintains its appropriations at the current level. Ryan Low, director of Governmental and External Affairs for the University of Maine System, said the governor’s proposal is in line with the thinking of the board and Chancellor James Page.
“In listening to what the governor’s comments were, I think they are completely in line with what the chancellor and the trustees are saying,” he said. “The trustees are very concerned about controlling the cost of tuition.”
Low said the trustees froze tuition rates last year, so with the current proposal, tuition would be held at the same rates for three years. He said the freeze also applies to fees, which can be substantial.
“We have not had the chance to come in yet … one on one with the governor to discuss our budget,” he said. “We look forward to talking with the governor about his idea.”
Low is a former state budget officer and finance commissioner under former Gov. John Baldacci and has worked on several two-year state budgets. He said in past discussions the governor has expressed concerns about the administrative costs of the University of Maine System.
“Chancellor Page has undertaken a universitywide review of administrative costs and the structure of the university system,” he said.
Gov. LePage has said in past interviews that the administrative costs in the University of Maine System were too high, and that more emphasis should be placed on programs and faculty that will help Maine’s economy grow. Low said university officials are listening.
Page has set up several review teams to look at the particulars on how all of the campuses operate, and identify ways the campuses can cooperate to reduce administrative costs. In the next few months, those teams are scheduled to report to the chancellor with recommendations that will achieve savings that can be reinvested in the university system.
Low said three team reports are under review covering information technology, human resources and strategic procurement.
“We constantly need to look at the cost of education,” Low said. “That is something that we have been doing. The chancellor and the trustees take that very seriously.”
Tuition rates vary significantly among the campuses. The University of Maine at Augusta has the lowest at $6,510 a year for an in-state student. The highest is the flagship Orono campus of the University of Maine at $8,370 a year for an in-state student. Fees also vary widely, with the University of Maine at Presque Isle the lowest at $700 and the Orono highest at $2,224. Tuition for out-of-state students varies from campus to campus but in general is at least twice that of in-state tuition.
Yearly cost of attending University of Maine System
(includes room and board, fees)
University of Maine:
Out of state: $39,866
In state: $23,006
University of Southern Maine:
Out of state: $31,756
In state: $19,396
University of Maine-Farmington:
Out of state: $26,679
In state: $17,591
University of Maine-Fort Kent:
Out of state: $26,585
In state: $16,625
University of Maine-Presque Isle:
Out of state: $25,098
In state: $15,158
University of Maine-Machias:
Out of state: $27,200
In state: $15,380
University of Maine-Augusta:
Out of state: $16,688
In state: $7,448
Commuter school
LePage, in the style of the new Republican, wants to eliminate anything “liberal” from college and make it a job mill for big business. Educated people are mocked. Nurses and teachers are derided.
Thankfully the American people are starting to see how dangerously far to the right the GOP has gone, how insane and inflexible its policies are, how much anger and fanaticism it fosters.
Romney, to become the GOP King, has had to renounce Romneycare, deny global warming, and basically turn into a triple-faced, flip-flopping hypocrite. It’s the only way to satisfy the extreme right. The Tea Party eliminates all moderation. Refuses all compromise. They don’t recognize the legitimacy of the Democrats at all.
We live in scary times.
Thank goodness for the liberal left. Or we common folk would have no where to turn and be at the mercy of the heartless members of the GOP. Cause, I think I just read a different article then this gentleman read.
Guess you did. Through red (or tea) colored glasses.
TEA
you are gonna think its scary when the government finally runs out of money or our dollar becomes worthless
Seems that them there educators “got” to do lots to please Paulie’s way of ciphering. Where’s Jethro when we need him?
Money is nothing more than a Medium of Exchange!
What Gives it Value Is Trust!
What makes it worthless is Lack of TRUST!
When it gets so bad that The President Hides his in Foriegn Banks!
The Trust Is Gone!
You should go work on your survival shelter.
Glad to hear you are so worried about the government running out of money. Maybe you should tell your TeaPublicans to learn how to be fiscally responsible. Stop giving billions upon billions to the rich and big corporations of all kinds, especially the oil companies. Stop the loopholes which allow your corporate buddies to pay no taxes or much lower tax rates through all kinds of offshore shelters. Stop the endless wars. Reduce the ultra bloated military budget with all its no bid contracts. Stop trying to police the world. Stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. Stop transferring the wealth of the nation from the middle class to a very small number of rich who have had to sacrifice NOTHING in the GREAT TEAPUBLICAN RECESSION. In fact, they have only gotten richer while the rest of us HAVE had to sacrifice. Gee, there’s a few ideas for you if you are actually concerned about fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps the bleeding heart liberals ought to cut off aid to countries who are terrorists and as Obama says…”may be our allies, or might not be”….Like the ones terrorizing our diplomats! Yeah, the ones Obama sent yet another apology to! Supply them with money or weapons to kill us with, yeah that’s a GREAT plan!
How about if we start with the benefactors of the bleeding heart Repubs and repeal Dubya’s tax cuts.
There has never been a Repub president that cut spending! If you think this monkey would be different, I have a bridge to sell you.
Let say the earth warmed up every year for 100 years that is only 1/ 47,000,000th of the time earth was here no Prof . Could be in the middle of the biggest cooling of period . Global warming?
The U.S. lags the industrial world in STEM achievement – I see evidence of this every day.
The isotope geochemistry of atmospheric carbon clearly indicates that the rise of CO2 concentrations since the industrial revolution is the result of the combustion of fossil fuels.
The geochemical evidence also clearly indicates the recent rise in methane and nitrous oxide concentrations are due to human activity.
The geophysical evidence clearly indicates that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have measurably altered the Earth’s radiative balance and trapped more upwelling long wavelength IR in the Earth’s climate system.
Historical thermometer data. borehole data, oceanographic CTD data, proxy evidence from tree rings, corals, glacial ice cores and marine sediment cores, and the behavior of the Cryosphere – all clearly indicate that the Earth is warming – beyond any potential changes due to natural forcings.
Humans are clearly warming (not cooling) the planet.
Claims to the contrary are ignorant right wing superstitious claptrap.
Yessah
Blah, Blah, Blah, we are all gonna die, repent, the end is year. We have heard your baloney before, go peddle your new age religion, your mumbo jumbo somewhere else. Thank you
It’s called science.
It is something they teach at the University of Maine – something that conservatives cannot and do not understand.
Go back to reading yer stupid Ayn Rand fictional religious tracts.
Ignorance is Strength
(a phrase from another writer)
Yessah
I bet you don’t share a mirror with anyone.
Poor pitiful you.
Enjoy yer ignorant fantasies!
Yessah
And you do? If you can see yourself I guess that rules out one being.
With his Mom.
LOL!
Truth is the enemy of the republican party!A party of ostriches when it comes to global warming and anything connected to real science.
Speaking of blah mumbo jumbo. Nobody is “preaching” the end is near. Just that it’s going to be a warm ride (kind of like the underworld?). Blind denialism is the mumbo jumbo.
One would think that the early shedding of lobsters – and the havoc wrought on the livelihood of Maine lobstermen, the northward retreat of commercial fish species in the Gulf of Maine, climatic havoc wrought upon Maine’s maple syrup and apple producers, ticks, lack of ice for smelting and early season ice fishing, rising sea levels, the looming “bacon crisis” and drought-related food price increases – would jolt these folks back to reality.
Sadly, you can’t fix stupid.
Yessah
Why do Republicans have no faith in the science of global warming, yet blindly follow the end of times predictions on the national debt and for that matter the blind faith in capitalism as a whole?
Nice comment with a great ending!
“against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain”-Friedrich von Schiller
as quoted by Issac Asimov in The Gods Themselves, a book about an cheap and seemingly endless energy source that would destroy earth and humanity with it but no one was interested in ending its use because it was to convenient and the general populace was to stupid to care or understand how it really worked. Hmm do I see some parallel to today….
Stop picking nits and stick to the point. Do agree with LePage’s latest bad move or not?
First governor in my knowledge to directly intervene in UMS fiscal policy. KUDOS
Interesting proposal to hold constant someone’s tuition through four years of undergraduate school…Nice incentive to both stay in college and complete the degree in four years. Perpetual students going from loan to loan are the plague of higher education. Going to college has become their job. Time to end the free ride.
I do not agree with Lepage a lot of thing but this I would be way harder than he is. Colleges get nothing if they can waste money on sports. What do you think the SAT scores of the 63 football players average? UMaine football cost $870,000 more last year than it bought in. Plenty of smart kids Do not go to college because of money. My tax dollar Pay Cosgroves wages? I have an issue with that. Sports are not needed for an education. At least not the money they spend. I have family that buys stuff they do not need at rent a center. They ask me for gas money all the time they get non. I like to help people but enabling them is doing a disservice . Same thing we do. Cut waste them I would have no issue with paying all the tuition to college. No scholarships Should be giving to student with Sub Par SAT scores to play sports. I would bet money that 25% middle school kids would score higher on the SAT than 50% football players. Hockey might be different . But those kids come from upper middle class for the most part.
The Earth is only 6,000 years old. Just ask a Christian. We don’t need higher education, it is of the Debil.
It’s time to stop being so liberal and say NO to the very things that the Dems are supporting to make this a weak and pitiful country! No to same sex marriage, no to foreign aid to anyone other than our allies, no to illegials, no to a free ride, make jobs not welfare addicts, stop spending and borrowing from our enimies!
I liked it better when Penguin was in China and we didn’t hear from him. Any chance they’d take him back?
Maybe you could move over there to China… Then your parents would save money from you living in their basement. Win win situation for them and us..
Ha! I was thinking it has been awhile since we heard from him and how nice. When he talks, it is like nails on a chalkboard.
So that’s why they’ve replaced chalkboards. Incidentally, that’s something I could do without trauma and drove the rest of the class mad.
Only as a Sumo Wrestler!
Um, that’s Japan, gameboy.
The U of M system, got drunk on the student loan money flowing at a rate faster than a waterfalls in the spring. Now, the heat is on, watch’em squirm, watch’em forget and lose interest in remembering all the sadness and hangover of the lost students floundering in student load debt, how
we must shadow, and backpage all this by the sports program, the Bears, seen the game?
Of course, the only athletics worth rooting for or supporting are winners. How Vince Lombardi of you.
Jock McKernan’s for profit college company Education Management Corporation also “got drunk on the student loan money flowing at a rate faster than a waterfalls in the spring. ”
Now they’re being investigated for fraud.
keep in mind Lepage is trying to actually balance the budget, not use gimmicks like the previous 16 years of Democratic rule did! i think we should take money from the university and give it to the community college system, which actually grants degrees you can actually get a job with
Every governor has balanced the budget as it is required under the constitution. LePage’s gimmick is to give a tax break to the wealthiest Mainers funded by the working people of Maine.
Funny how the Bully in the Blaine House is all for spending tax payer dollars on charter and private schools if the owners of those charter and private schools are campaign contributors, but is against spending on education when the money isn’t going to those who paid to get him elected. Wonder why that is?
I may be wrong, but didn’t this guy claim to be the education GOVERNOR?
What a misrepresentation. 180 degrees opposite.
I support Lepage on this. I fact I would say not one dime To them and make them pay taxes if they cam waste Millions on sports.
I hate to tell ya!
But!
America Wastes Billions on Sports!
Ok well that is not that bad for the Gov-4 years and flat tuition. I agree with that.But why the disparity in fees between campuses.The state should close those small campuses(which I have said for years) and consolidate education at state schools in Maine to two or three primary campuses. Everything else can be done at the community college, with increased support by closing the campuses, or online. Come on…. we really need UMPI,UMFK and UMM?????…that can’t be done online????
. Gov, take a look at that…we don’t need all these piddly wink campuses anymore…get on board with technology and keep three of the campuses…Orono, Portland/Gorham and Farmington, make the rest online and send the money the the community colleges.
Evidently you don’t live near those campuses like most of their students do. Being a commuter student to a nearby campus, even with high fuel prices, is cheaper than adding room and board onto tuition and fees.
Apparently you’re “out of the loop” in terms of which three campuses you’d keep open. For the last 15-20 years, UMA (University of Maine at Augusta) has been doing exactly what you say the UM system should do – teach online. It currently has 44 locations across the state where you can attend classes taught in Augusta or Bangor but viewed through interactive television (ITV) at the rest of the 44 sites.
Since you’d close the one location that IS doing the most to teach “online”, I think your moniker fits you – Cant Fix Stupid.
Online learning and satellite classrooms via cc tv could easily be deployed by the other campuses that remained if UMA where closed. Its not rocket science and plenty of other campuses are doing it throughout the US. There are no dorms at UMA. You musthave a vested interest in UMA or just be ignorant. The problem is that we are all paying to subsidize these small campuses with tax dollars.
There’s a big debate in the academic world (I’m not in it but a read a lot and talk to teachers and professors) about the virtues and pitfalls of online teaching. There are some including a local University College professor who maintain that everyone (including the professor) learns and learns well in a class. Even if the worst student is absent, they are missed and everyone knows it. of course his classes are not just lectures but very participatory.
Not everyone learns well online. Some people need to learn in person or in more hands on ways. I have enjoyed to online classes I took, but many people I have spoken to can’t learn well that way.
In my opinion you just stated part of the problem, UMA has classrooms in 44 locations, including some that are within striking distance of the other universities. If a student is that close to one of the other classes then attend classes at one of the other campuses. If each university had 44 locations (your number) then with 6 universities that would be 264 sites across the state plus the community colleges. Each of those sites has costs associated with them, even when they’re ITV classroom sites. The UMS can’t be all things to all students, nor should it try to be.
Glad to hear that the governor is trying to gain control of the growing education cost at the State sponsored schools. I have kids at Orono and another looking to go to USM next year, and between Obamas overworked money press and tuition cost I will be working until I am 85 years old!
LePage is just playing games since it wasn’t his idea. Lame excuses in return. Costs are under control for at least the next 2 years. Why should LePage have that much say in it anyway, “expert” that he is?
Get-R-Done, and that is what he does!!!!!!
Is that like the three Rs? That’s about the limit of his education expertise.
You know there is something wrong with the education system when of the three R’s, only one actually begins with an R. :-)
You mean like all the jobs he has “created”? Where, exactly, are they??
How about making the pampered, guaranteed a job for life professors work for a living, teaching students 40 hours a week, 48, 49, 50 weeks a year – instead of the part time hours they currently enjoy, at our expense.
Then they wouldn’t have any time to do research. You do realize it’s research that adds to our knowledge, don’t you? For without research, we’d be taught the same things that were taught a hundred years ago. You know, things that are outdated…
Those “part-time hours you speak about? Here’s what goes into them. For EACH course a p;rofessor teaches, he/she:
Has to review various textbooks and select the one he/she feels teaches the material
the best;
Work with the bookstore to ensure that there are textbooks ordered to arrive by the
time the class begins;
Design a lesson plan for teaching all of the material;
Put together a syllabus listing all kinds of information, including a detailed week-by-week
list of how the class will progress;
Make sure he/she can use all the technology available, and learn how to use the technology
he/she is unfamiliar with;
Teach the class for approximately 3 hours a week;
Review and grade homework;
On a regular basis, review the syllabus schedule – are we progressing faster than planned or
are we lagging behind? Adjust the schedule as needed.
Hold office hours for students who are struggling with the material, so they can get indivu-
alized assistance;
Design tests and a final exam;
Grade each student’s test and his/her final exam;
If a term paper or project was assigned, collect the papers and grade them;
Post all the grades as earned into Blackboard (a program designed to allow students and
instructor to interact with each other throughout the course;
At the end of the semester, all the material each student has submitted needs to be
reviewed, and a letter grade assigned to the student’s course work;
All the grades have to be submitted within 10 days of the end of the class to the
administration to be posted to the student’s college transcript;
Interact with any student who questions his/her grade.
I’m sure I left a few things out of this list, but those “part time” hours you speak about? They aren’t “part time” at all.
At least a quarter of the items listed would take maybe an hour of actual time. Many of the time consuming items, grading papers for example, are actually done by students for the professors.
Have you ever had to teach a college level course?
Have you ever had to write a *competitive* grant proposal, conduct the research and publish the results in a peer reviewed journal?
Have you ever served on any academic committees – or supervised graduate students – or served as a Department Chair?
Have you ever had to prove yourself to be worthy of tenure or promotion?
Obviously not.
There is not enough hours in a day or days in the week to get things done as a university professor.
Reality.
Yessah
But plenty of time to comment on blogs.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah….
As an expert (what is your teaching CV?), please elaborate on what activities would would take an hour. Is that each? I thought so.
And that is for ONE class. Each class has the same amount of work, unless, of course, you are teaching 2 or 3 classesof the same course.
In addition, time on committees is required. Many courses have labs to run, admmitedly with TA help but still need to be planned and supervised. Especially in universities, research is required (publish or perish still exists). Dedicated professors have professional society activities 9giving back to the profession). Etc., etc.
Yes, you forgot that 50 percent of faculty time is, by their “job description,” to be spent on research, which includes travel to national and international archives and conferences, at which they must give papers on their research. They also must do student advising for students who are NOT in their classes…..i.e., majors in their department (in some departments that means advising 25-30 students in addition to the students in their classes). Their “job description” also includes mandatory service to the department, the university, and the community. This means serving on committees both within and outside their department. They write many letters of recommendation for students seeking employment and/or entrance to graduate programs. They also are called upon to write letters of recommendation for their peers across the country who are going up for promotion or seeking employment elsewhere. Because their research often opens up and/or addresses new areas of interest, they sometimes are called upon to develop new courses in those areas. No matter what their area of teaching, they must constantly update their knowledge of that area and adjust their teaching to reflect new information.
Do professors have it good? Sure…..tenure alone makes their job a desirable one. But do they work only 3 hours a week, 30 weeks a year? Heck no. While those outside the profession may work 40 hours, when they go home, they leave the job behind. Professors carry their job with them all the time and must work on all aspects of it throughout the day and the year. It is silly to reduce their “work time” down to classroom hours….that is no more true for a professor than it is for a teacher, whose “free time” is spent preparing, reading, correcting exams and papers, and maintaining their professional development in order to keep their certification current.
at best it’s 20 hrs./ week and that’s at beginning and end of semester. D.L. classes take more time since there is much more student interaction.
Hate to tell you, a faculty gig for a tenured prof. is very, very easy!
You obviously know nothing about what it takes to be college professor.
You could not work that hard.
Conservatism – the Ideology of Ignorance.
Yessah
Did you know that research professors are only paid for 9 months a year?
Or that remaining 3 months of salary has to come from grant funding?
Did you know that the success rate of grant proposals in many fields of science is less than 10%.
And that if they do not get grant funding, they have no summer salary and cannot get tenure?
Probably not.
Yessah
“Did you know that research professors are only paid for 9 months a year?”
Boo Hoo. Lots of professions only work for part of the year. Ever hear of construction for example? You budget for the whole year and if as a professor you cannot figure that out then you need some more education.
So the sucess rate of grant proposals in many fields of science is less than 10%. You need to get grant funding to get tenure. Using your “facts” then only 10% of professors would have tenure.
Since that is factually incorrect it means you have at the very least embellished the facts. In how many other areas do you also twist facts or choose only affirmative information to support your position?
..and then there are summer interns for all the scut work.
How about requiring U Maine to limit majors in areas where job prospects are limited and encouraging those that actually have a future? We need far fewer English, Journalism, Music and Anthropology majors. Yeah, there is a booming industry, anthropology. Let’s focus on Math and Science and set a cap on everything else, making the kids learn something actually useful. Instead higher education loads up kids with student loans for life and an often worthless education.
Ah, more education major “censorship”. How do we know what the job market is for any field 4-5 years out (which is when this years freshmen graduate). Besides, careers are distinct from jobs (which are indeed a component of careers).
Let’s just eliminate all courses and all depts. that don’t lead directly to job creation! A trade school like Carabassett Valley for prospective ski pros. But there are downsides in lots of fields that are not predictable, like some areas of engineering and nursing. What happens then?
Yes, because of course nobody needs to learn anything about English, Music or Anthropology in this world. You are posting on a NEWSPAPER site, where the entirety of the news is written by journalists and English majors. And lord knows, we don’t need to know anything about our anthropological past, about world religions (those don’t affect our culture or politics at all….). Psychology and Sociology? Wasted areas…..who needs to know about human behavior, motivations, deviance, etc. History? Another wasted area. Hey, been there, done that. Why do we need to keep rehashing it? What’s in the past has no bearing on the present or the future. Yeah, I say do away with anything but the “trades” and applied science…..the future will include lots of robots who won’t need to know anything about humanity in order to function.
What’s your degree in, by the way?
Of course it isn’t good enough for LePage, what did we expect? He’s only around for another two years, why should the UMS pledge more than that? As they point out, it’s for 3 years anyway. And how does he suggest getting more out of state students? Use him for a poster boy (good advocate as he is for Maine)? :-)
Am I the first to catch that out of state tuition is not twice in state? More, but not double.
It’s too easy to fault Gov. LePage. Most of the current top administrators who have contempt for faculty and staff came from the Baldacci Admin., Becky Wyke and Robert Low above all. Both were hired at big salaries without a search! TRY DOING THAT FOR A CUSTODIAN AND SEE HOW FAR ONE GETS (NOT KIDDING) Meanwhile these top honchos give themselves payraises while denying any to ordinary faculty and staff–the peasants, in their eyes. If Gov. LePage’s own contempt for the liberal arts is obvious, he has plenty of support by System Trustees and top administrators.
Read fishshtick’s comment and get back to us.
There is a very big reason out of state students aren’t coming to UMaine. They visit campus and see a bunch of crumbling or condemned buildings. Seriously, its sad to see the paint flaking off the siding, broken windows, leaky roofs, floors with half the tiles missing, dank classrooms with chairs and desks from the 1960s to 1980s. The place is held together with duct tape and BO. An out of state student is looking for something better than they can get in state, not lead and asbestos poisoning. The fact is, the state has cut and cut and cut its contributions to the point where there is no choice but to let the buildings rot and charge the students more just to keep what buildings remain heated. The faculty haven’t seen a cost of living increase since 2007 and are in the bottom 10% of salaries nation wide. LePage has frozen bonds that were supposed to help fix up some of campus. There is no way that cutting more state funding to the UMaine system will ever make it more appealing or cheaper for in state or out of state students. Indeed, if the state doesn’t step up, there won’t be a UMaine system in 10 years.
Before you go thinking there is some big political battle going on here, you should know that the Governor appoints the University of Maine System Board of Trustees. Enjoy the show…its for your entertainment.
Yes, the Gov. appoints the System Trustees, and Baldacci, a pseudo-Democrat who had Dem. majorities in both houses, appointed in his last year two conservative Republicans: Susan Collins’ brother Sam and EMHC CEO Michelle Hood. He cared, as he admitted to an earlier Trustee who supported unions, that he was only interested in athletics, nothing else. His two GOP nominees are now Vice Chair and Chair respectively of the Board and are not exactly sympathetic toward faculty, much less the other peasants. They have little info. re real life on the seven campuses but want to micromanage what they know little about and to spend millions on often unneeded consultants. So whatever LePage has done to date, it pales beside Baldacci’s appointments in term of trying to improve public higher ed.
Lepage in a moment of candor went on to say. “How am I supposed to keep giving tax breaks to my rich friends if I don’t get some concessions from you working SOB’s.”
Clinton said it, doncha know; or was it John Kerry?
If you don’t know the true…just make up your own fact, yea, like King does.
This is unreal.The gov. cuts and freezes everybody but his own cronies.In all his rants and tears not once does he mention his pay or perks or the lawmakers.workers who set behind the desk get pay raisesto $17.00 per hour.He should be looking to upgrade the facilitys that is there.
If we follow LePage’s idea of flat-funding all 4 years of a student’s education, so what they paid in their freshman year is what they pay in their seniod year, would go something like this:
2012, September Freshman enters school, tuition and fees set for next 4 years.
2013, Seotember Freshman becomes sophomore. New freshman enters. His/her tuition set
for 4 years at same rate as student who is now a sophomre.
2014, September Sophomore becomes junior. Previous freshman becomes sophomore. New
freshman enters. Tuition for new freshman set for 4 years at same rate
as students who are now a junior and a sophomore.
With this plan, there will never be another tuition increase, and students 20 years from now will still be paying the same as current students.
Alternative version has tuition increases for each successive freshman class, until eventually, the shcool is dealing with 4 different tuition and fee schedules each year – one for the seniors (whose tuition and fee schedule was set 3 years prior when they entered as freshmen), juniors (whose tuition and fee schedule was set 2 years ago when they entered as freshmen), sophomores (whose tuition and fee schedule was set 1 year ago when they entered as freshmen), and this year’s freshmen, who have their own tuition and fee schedule.
What about a student who leaves school for a year or more and then comes back? Will they have the same tuition and fee schedule they had when they entered as freshmen? That could mean that some students have individual tuition and fee schedules which no other student has, so there could be MULTIPLE tuition and fee schedules for each group of students – seniors, juniors, etc.
Think about the software nightmare this would be…..
good thing PeopleSoft is easy to program. And good thing the small campuses have adequate staff..oh wait, they don’t. Well good thing the System Office has resources..oh wait ,those were just cut and it sounds like there are more cuts (er..’savings’ on the way)
After reading all this I guess Gov. LePage should do what the Govs. of the last sixteen years did. NOTHING!!! Then all the Dems. will be happy. We can go back to the state being run by the Dems. national party and the states public unions.
There should be two state universities.
The University of Maine
University of Southern Maine
Convert the rest to smaller state colleges without a University label.
I agree. But would it save money?
“LePage says…” Who really gives a tinker’s dam what this hypocrite-in-chief says? He’s a lame-duck who’ll soon be a nonentity on the political scene.
LePage thinks he is an expert on just about every issue, including running educational institutions. He then seems to believe that only his thinking is the most effective. Add a need to get his own way, and one gets not only a real jerk, but a very ineffective manger, or in his case, governor. He is really just so repulsive.
Why do conservative who feel (improperly, in my opinion) that government should be run like a business continually advocate that government do things that no business would ever consider? Can you imagine LePage’s reaction if the Marden’s sales director told him they should freeze prices for four years?
After years of double digit increases. Flat is not good enough. What is wrong with double digit decreases.
Something I support Lepage on. Wow. I think Ted Kozinski and would would be able to have a nice talk about how evil colleges seem to be the great waste. etc. Only difference is we would disagree about what to do about it. Give me a break why does tuition cost like 4 times as much adjusted for inflation? It has little to do with education people . That is not the major goal for that reason they should not only not get Tax funding they should be Made to pay taxes. How about requiring an SAT score in the top 50% ?. I would bet half the football players would have to go home.
Start cutting from the top down.. they always cut the worker bees. I professor equals 10 worker bees. Heck half of them are traveling the world while graduate students teach their courses. It is a cult
It’s embarrassing to see talk about “buying” out-of-state and international students. Meanwhile, nobody is really looking at – or caring about – the quality of teaching. Guess the idea is just to find people who have enough money to buy a degree by paying higher tuition. When did the university stop being a university and officially become a degree store? And why would out-of-staters or persons from other cultures want to spend several years in some of the places the campuses are located?
Let me see if I understand this:
Gov. Paul LePage wants the UMaine system to attract more out-of-state students because they pay more in tuition.
This from the same man that had his wife establish residency in Florida so that two of their kids could qualify for in-state tuition there.
And, after LePage said – without any evidence at all – that colleges in other states look down on Maine students because our schools are so poor.
Nice job Gov. LePage – keep up the great work.
“They [have] got to show me a heck of a lot more than just freezing tuition,” he said in an interview. “They [have] got to show me they are moving in the right direction.”???
i DONT BELIEVE THEY NEED TO PROVE OR SHOW ANYTHING TO YOU. PLEASE EVEN THOUGHT THE ECONOMIES ARE BAD AS IT IS BUT ALSO IT WOULD BE VERY NICE TO NOT KEEP PUTTING PEOPLE DOWN. The school system are doing as much as they can and VERY PROUD OF BEING MAINE COLLEGE GRADUATED AND THANKS ALL THE TEACHER IN THE STATE OF MAINE FOR ALL THEY DO FOR THEIR STUDENTS