The University of Maine at Augusta will stop funding a learning center in East Millinocket next year.
The decision is part of a broader set of moves the University of Maine System is making to cut its budget in the wake of years of multimillion-dollar shortfalls. It also reflects how the path to earning a degree at any university within the UMaine System is changing.
UMA administrators have not announced any looming budget gaps, but the cuts will save the university tens of thousands of dollars, said Samantha Warren, a spokesperson for the system. Other centers in Saco, Rockland, Rumford, South Paris, Houlton and Belfast are either being closed or their budgets are being cut, Warren said.
UMA and Eastern Maine Community College have jointly run the Katahdin Higher Education Center in East Millinocket since 1987.
The center will remain open until the end of the academic year, partially because of $100,000 Gov. Janet Mills directed toward it in June. The center’s future beyond that hasn’t been decided, EMCC spokesperson Michael Hambrock said.
In the 2024-25 academic year, UMA paid EMCC nearly $150,000 to run the center with 14 students enrolled in the university’s programs, Warren said. Funding was then reduced the next year to roughly $57,000, which covered part of the center’s operating budget and a portion of two employees’ salaries and benefits, according to a memorandum of understanding between EMCC and UMA.
That funding dropped to $10,000 for the current academic year.
Although funding has drastically decreased, 82 students have attended short-term workforce training programs this fall, Hambrock said. Those programs, which are not part of UMA’s curriculum, will not change this spring, Hambrock said.
In recent years, there’s been a push toward online learning inside the UMaine system, such as the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s YourPace program. The system has continued to examine the role of physical learning locations as online programs increasingly make up a growing share of academic credits earned, Warren said.
“As we work to right-size our footprint for the future, we are more committed than ever to advancing innovative, cost-effective approaches to meeting the needs of all Maine learners, who we know depend on access to our public universities for education and upward mobility,” Warren said.
By cutting funding to the Katahdin Higher Education Center, the UMaine System is vacating the Katahdin region. The nearest campus to the Millinocket area is now the University of Maine Orono campus.
While no decisions about the center’s future have been made, conversations with community partners about what the next steps for the center have been productive, Hambrock said.