Ian Munsell, 21, of Auburn, just graduated from Central Maine Community College. This fall he’s attending the University of Southern Maine, one of many students helping USM execute a big rebound.

At CMCC, Munsell studied precision machining, a skill local employers are clamoring for. At USM, he’ll study technology management.

He picked USM for several reasons, including the number of CMCC credits he earned that USM accepted. And, Munsell said, “USM has some of the best courses I could find, not only in Maine but on the East Coast.”

There are a lot of Ian Munsells out there enrolling at USM, according to the university.

For the first time in years, USM has reversed declining enrollments at the Portland, Gorham and Lewiston campuses and is enjoying a 19 percent surge. And, USM’s new president, Glenn Cummings, is delighted to report the budget is balanced.

That’s a turnaround. And one that Cummings calls “nothing short of spectacular.”

Two years ago, USM faced a whopping $16 million debt in its $140 million budget. Former Central Maine Power Co. CEO and University of Maine System Board of Trustees Chairman David Flanagan was hired as interim president to make cuts in programs and positions.

At the time of his hire, he told The Free Press — USM’s student newspaper — that “I have seen this phenomenon before — a competent, well-meaning organization built up over decades in a cocoon of monopoly conditions suddenly has to confront competition and changing conditions.”

And, he said, “in USM’s case, the demographics have changed, competition has increased and state support has seriously declined. When you look at the statistics on enrollment, revenue, market share, and deficit spending, you know we have kicked the can down the road for far too long.”

Out of 270 faculty positions at the university’s three campuses, 51 positions were eliminated; some were retirements, some layoffs, Cummings said. Another 119 staff positions were cut.

Flanagan left in the summer of 2015, replaced on July 1 by Cummings, a former state legislator and then-president of the University of Maine at Augusta.  

The cuts were painful, Cummings said, but they had to happen.

“Quite frankly, he (Flanagan) set us on the right path financially. Does that mean that every decision he made last year was the right one? No, but he had to apply a very carefully prescribed union contract.”

Even with the staff and program cuts under Flanagan, the university needed emergency cash, turning to the UMS Board of Trustees for an additional $15 million since 2014. This year, as the end of the fiscal year approaches on June 30, Chief Business Officer Buster Neel anticipates a “small budget surplus” and that USM will be able to balance its just-approved $127 million budget in the year to come.

USM has rebounded quicker than expected by a change in attitudes and practices, according to Cummings.

It has kept a tight rein on spending, ensuring no spending “is beyond what we can afford,” Cummings said. “If we lost a person, we looked at could it be made up some other way?” Often when a professor left, he or she was replaced by a less expensive lecturer or adjunct professor.

As USM’s budget continues to stabilize, the number of full-time professors will rise, Cumming said. In addition to teaching, he believes they benefit students by being available on campus and helping with community service.

Cummings attributes the enrollment boost to Nancy Griffin, USM’s vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, who was brought in from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

After Griffin was hired to improve enrollment, “we went back to basics. There were things we needed to start doing,” Cummings said.

Before this year, USM was not on the “common application” like many colleges and universities. The common application system allows high school students to fill out one application for multiple schools. Rolling admissions has resulted in more students applying through the summer, too.

Griffin also changed how financial aid is offered to different groups.

“For years we have believed we’re a state-subsidized university, the price point doesn’t matter that much because we’re already subsidized,” Cummings said. The attitude was that competing private colleges, Husson, Thomas and St. Joe’s, “all have higher prices, so we should be able to win.”

But those schools discount some students at huge percentages, he said. And “our students care very much about price.”

Among the targeted scholarships created by Griffin were “Final Mile” scholarships for transfer students, which has helped grow enrollment, Cummings said.

“We’ve never given money to transfer students like those from CMCC, Southern Maine Community College. It turns out it was a smart investment.”

Students who have earned two-year degrees at Maine’s community colleges “have confidence, have discipline, they know what they want to do and are often more mature,” he said.

USM’s annual tuition of about $8,000 can’t compete with the community college’s annual tuition of about $4,000, he said. Many high school graduates will decide to get their two-year degrees at a community college.

USM has shifted focus “to the back end, the transfer” of students wanting to continue their education and get four-year degrees. “That’s key,” Cummings said. “It’s a better partnership. It’s better for Maine.”

USM has hundreds of students who have transferred from expensive, out-of-state colleges and universities after students and parents analyze college debt. “More are looking at us now,” Cummings said.

Future plans for USM, Cummings said, include continuing to build programs tied to jobs such as cybersecurity, computer science and health care.

It also plans to work on recruiting older and non-traditional students, people in the workforce who haven’t completed college.

Having more degree workers will help Maine attract jobs, Cummings said.

“We have to target them. It’s not just about a business plan, it’s also about Maine.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

What’s different?

At the University of Southern Maine campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston, compared to one year ago:

• Out-of-state deposits are up 21 percent; transfer student deposits from schools like Central Maine Community College or other four-year colleges are up 17 percent.

• More high-achieving high school graduates are enrolling. One year ago, 16 merit scholarship graduates had sent in a deposit by early June. This year that number has spiked to 216.

• At the Lewiston campus, there are 122 new applications this year compared to 72 at this time one year ago.

• Student deposits, a strong indicator that students will show up in the fall, are up 174 percent at the Lewiston campus. 

Source: USM