BANGOR – Maine’s community college system was born Tuesday as the seven technical colleges officially adopted their new names at special events marking the transformation.

Adding to the occasion was Gov. John Baldacci’s announcement of a two-year tuition freeze made possible by a $475,000 gift from the Bernard Osher Foundation that is being matched by state funds.

Tuition will remain at $2,040 per year, as it has since 1998. The Osher gift also included $475,000 for the University of Maine System and $50,000 for Maine Maritime Academy, which will use the money, along with state matching funds, for scholarships.

“This will make higher education even more affordable,” Baldacci said during a ceremony at the newly named Eastern Maine Community College.

Officials have long said a comprehensive community college system is needed to provide accessible, affordable entry points to help boost the number of Mainers who graduate from college, ensuring an educated work force. Only 23 percent of Maine residents have bachelor’s degrees, compared with the New England average of about 31 percent.

The Maine Community College System is the only one in the nation that can boast of a six-year tuition freeze, said President John Fitzsimmons, standing on the podium beneath a blue and gold sign that said, “Maine Community College System. Reach Higher.”

Tuition and fees at MCCS fall at about the middle of community college systems in other New England states – less than New Hampshire and Vermont, but higher than Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Nationwide, the average cost of tuition and fees among public two-year colleges is about $1,700, MCCS officials said. Maine is the fourth-highest in that group.

Costs to the community college system will drop as more students enter the new liberal arts programs, said Fitzsimmons, noting that occupational programs are more expensive to offer.

With the number of applications up more than 10 percent, the new name “is already making a difference,” he told the group, which included EMCC faculty and staff, higher education officials, legislators and businesspeople.

Fitzsimmons said he aims to increase enrollment from 7,500 to 11,000 to 12,000 within seven years by targeting high school students who traditionally haven’t gone on to higher education, as well as laid-off and underemployed workers.

Another goal is to continue support for the occupational programs that have been the underpinning for the campuses, formerly called vocational technical institutes before being renamed technical colleges in 1989. “They are a major part of our future. They are the key to the economy of Maine,” he said.

The community college system will raise another $950,000 during the next five years to create an endowment fund for annual scholarships. The fund is expected to generate about $50,000 a year for the scholarships.

Down the road, said Fitzsimmons, the community college system will focus more on preparing students to continue their educations at four-year colleges and offering more liberal arts courses.

“This is a great day for higher education in the state,” said EMCC President Joyce Hedlund. The new community college system will ensure that “there will be no educational ceilings in our state,” she said.

For years, the technical colleges have acted as de facto community colleges – offering two-year associate degrees, certificates and diplomas, more than 240 career programs, open admissions and support services, and work-force training for business and industry.

So while Tuesday’s changeover was largely symbolic, the logistics involved were anythiing but.

Alice Kirkpatrick, spokeswoman for the community college system, said this week that the name change involved voluminous details.

Campuses had been trying for the last year to “use down” the stationery, business cards and other office material inscribed with the system’s former name, she said.

Signs, Web sites and e-mails as well as phone book advertisements had to be updated, and vendors, accrediting and government agencies, business and educational partners notified, she said.

Costs for the changeover ran between $10,000 to $15,000 per campus, she said.

EMCC held a “giant sale,” selling clothing and other bookstore items with the old logo, Hedlund said this week.

“Now we’re restocking shelves with [updated] T-shirts, sweat shirts and college handbooks,” she said. And faculty members are busy “making changes on their syllabi, trying to keep ahead of it.”

The first campuses were established after World War II to train veterans in radio, automotive, electrical and machine tool programs. Five were not established until the 1960s.

Colleges need to continually reinvent themselves, said Alan Campbell of Newport, director of the Bangor campus between 1978 and 1989 when it was called Eastern Maine Vocational Technical Institute.

The new name simply states what the campus has always tried to do, according to Campbell.

“In my mind it was always a community college,” he said, pointing out its long-standing practice of awarding two-year associate degrees and enabling students to transfer to a four-year college. “But people didn’t identify it that way. Now they will.”