PORTLAND, Maine - Officials at the University of Maine's flagship campus at Orono say its incoming class this September will be more than 20 percent bigger than last year's.
About 2,500 students paid their deposit fees by the May 1 deadline - that's up from about 2,000 students in 2015.
Jeff Hecker is the vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Maine. He says a major reason for the jump is a big increase in out-of-state students. And he says that's thanks to a new program that offers students a tuition equal to that of the in-state tuition of their state's flagship university.
"And we're targeting a certain population of students, students who are out of state who are interested in studying at a flagship research university like the University of Maine," Hecker says.
Many of those students are from Massachusetts, where in-state tuition is significantly higher than in Maine. The match is available to students from there, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - all of which have higher in-state tuition.
That means out-of-state students still pay more, which Hecker says is good for the university's budget. And he says UMaine hasn't increased in-state tuition - currently at about $10,500 - for six years.
