Strategic plan means too many dollars, no sense

In trying to make sense of the recently passed University of Maine System (UMS) strategic plan, one must first take off the rose-colored glasses. What you then can clearly see is that the strategic plan is a “dismantle the University of Maine at Augusta” plan. It leaves the central Maine region without real representation at the decision-making table.

The plan is an elitist view of university education that says quality and access cannot co-exist. It calls for more collaboration, but penalizes the most efficient and collaborative campus (UMA) in the system. The plan is simply a

shifting of UMS budget dollars away from UMA (central Maine) to the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine by increasing their student count (FTEs) which is the basis for campus budgets. The main conclusion of the plan is an indication that UMA as UMA or as the University of Central Maine cannot meet the needs of central Maine, but UMA as part of USM is the magical answer.

The estimated financial savings of the plan are very questionable. The $15.5 million net savings, the original justification for the plan, essentially evaporated with the Aug. 23 plan modifications. The northern Maine campuses merger was eliminated as arguments of continued individual identities, maintaining presidents, and the relationships to future economic importance were heard. Why is it that similar arguments had no impact for central Maine and that our economic future is better served by decision-making based in southern Maine?

Lost revenues and millions of dollars in greater costs will result if the plan is implemented. Elimination of UMA associate degrees will remove 61 percent of current revenues. Losing UMA’s outreach centers to UM and USM will lower revenues by an additional 16 percent. Educational dollars will shrink greatly for central Maine and hinder any potential growth. UMA becoming a part of USM will raise tuition costs for students by 16.6 percent per credit hour and Maine public universities were recently called less affordable by the National Center for Policy and Higher Education. UMA will experience needless shutdown costs to exit associate degrees while the Community College System (CCS) will have unnecessary startup costs and all schools will be operating inefficiently during the many years of change over.

Additionally, we are now told that the CCS estimates that increasing their enrollments by 5,000 students will require an additional $18 million annually. The UMS chancellor is now calling for the state to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the years ahead to remain competitive. Do the residents of Maine think that we can afford this elitist view of higher education? Why pay millions more and create disruption for both systems when the solution (UMA) is already in place? Just ask our many present and past students about what UMA means to them.

Associate degrees are still very viable at four-year public universities. Of 653 four-year public universities that are tracked by the National Center of Education Statistics, 286 of them offer associate-degree education.

Offering additional bachelor degrees by merging UMA with USM was a justification of the plan, but Lewiston-Auburn College, which has now been part of USM for many years, offers only four baccalaureate degrees, with three additional extension baccalaureate degrees, while UMA has 15 baccalaureate degrees and several additional ones well along in planning. The UMS has had a rich history of brokering which allows a degree at one campus to be offered at another campus when the need exists. Therefore, continued collaboration, a UMA strength, is a much better way to meet these needs.

There is a real concern that input in the development of the plan was too carefully controlled and that newspapers have not presented a complete picture and analysis of the plan. Would a well-run organization undergo such a major change that will impact thousands of clients (students), create significant changes for those who deliver the services (faculty), when neither of these groups had a role in developing the recommendations for the plan? No legitimate dialogue has taken place other than at the highest levels of the system office and among top campus administrators. A decision of this magnitude needs far more consensus support than currently exists.

The support for the plan is very limited. Not a single individual in the audience at either of the Augusta public meetings, the UMA campus retreat, or the many additional meetings I attended spoke in favor of the UMS strategic plan. How does a plan that impacts so many, but is supported by so few, continue to move forward without a proper quantitative and qualitative analysis?

We are left to wonder whether a fair and impartial review of the plan will take place.

The K-16 Education Task Force set up by the governor should have taken place first and then the strategic plan could have developed from that consensus. Since this did not happen, we instead have some of those who concocted the strategic plan now passing judgment on it as members of the K-16 task force. Also, central Maine appears to be underrepresented on the task force.

UMA and central Maine are the only losers in the UMS strategic plan. A 1960s elitist solution to the new millennium educational challenges is being suggested and should be rejected as unaffordable and unnecessary. It is unaffordable as the strategic plan was created to address concerns about Maine’s ability to increase financial support for higher education needs and the money does not exist to support the plan. It is unnecessary because better alternatives exist like more collaboration between campuses and the CCS which would include sharing and brokering of degrees. The merger is not essential to meeting the goals of the strategic plan.

Barry Farber is a professor of business administration at the University of Maine Augusta.