Mass. students will get discount to attend University of Maine
Bay State students hoping to attend the University of Maine won’t have to pay out-of-state tuition to become Black Bears, thanks to a new program that will begin in the fall of 2016.
Ordinarily, out-of-state UMaine students would pay $28,880 for tuition and fees. Under the new program, out-of-state student qualify for one of two awards. To qualify for a full flagship match at the university, students must have both a high school GPA of at least 3.0 and SAT scores of 1050 or higher.
Massachusetts students who meet this criteria will receive a scholarship for $14,709, which is the cost of in-state tuition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This brings the cost of their tuition for the 2016-17 school year at UMaine down to $14,141.
Students from New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are also eligible for the reduced tuition rate.
Students who don’t not meet the GPA and SAT criteria will qualify for a smaller award of $9,000.
The university began the program to try to decrease declining enrollment and revenue, according to The Boston Globe.
Of the 35,752 Massachusetts students who went to four-year colleges and universities after graduating from high school in 2013, about 37 percent attended public colleges in Massachusetts and 14 percent went to public colleges out of state. The rest attended private colleges, according to data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
But UMaine is not the most popular out-of-state college Bay State students attend. The University of New Hampshire took the top honor, with 761 Massachusetts high school graduates from the class of 2013 enrolled there 16 months later, according to The Globe.
UMaine was the 11th most popular out-of-state college for Massachusetts kids, with 220 students, but was last among the other New England flagship campuses.
All costs are based on 2015-2016 tuition and fees at the flagship universities, but UMaine notes on its website these figures are subject to change.
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