PORTLAND — Enrollment growth within the University of Maine System is concentrated at the smaller campuses as more students recognize the improved quality of their programs and seek the small-college ambience the schools offer, officials say.

Machias, Augusta, Fort Kent and Presque Isle are attracting more students while Farmington, which was forced to cap enrollment at 2,000 two years ago, has seen a surge in applicants, transforming the campus into the state’s most selective public institution.

As the small campuses grow, the two largest components of the university — the flagship University of Maine campus at Orono and the University of Southern Maine — will probably maintain their enrollments or suffer a slight decline, said Chancellor Robert L. Woodbury.

The trend indicates that the system’s quality is improving across the board, Woodbury said, noting that growth on the small campuses could mitigate enrollment dips on the two larger campuses that are expected to coincide with state budget cuts.

“I have always felt that one of the great strengths of our institutions is that they are comparatively small and our smallest campuses have been improving steadily,” he said.

The University of Maine at Machias, threatened with closure a decade ago because of low enrollment, is expected to draw nearly 1,000 students this fall, up from 870 last year. The university plans to rent hotel space to accommodate the overflow from its dormitories.

Much of the growth at Machias has been in the science and mathematics division, which offers degrees in biology and environmental studies.

The University of Maine at Farmington had 1,300 applications for 460 positions in the freshman class. Five years ago, the campus received 650 applications for 450 positions.

“What has happened is that there are many students, especially in the East, whose idea of where to go to college is a small campus with a traditional, residential atmosphere, and they are finding that here,” said Michael J. Orenduff, president of UMF.

In the past, Orenduff said, such students looked exclusively to private colleges, but UMF provides the feel of a small, private school at a considerably lower cost.

Other state campuses may be getting Farmington’s overflow, university officials suggest. Between 1988 and 1989, enrollment increased by 12.7 percent at the University of Maine at Augusta, by 22 percent at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, and by 8.2 percent at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

Maine’s less prestigious private colleges could suffer from the growing popularity of the smaller public campuses.

A handful of students have transferred to Machias from financially troubled Unity College, which also has an environment-based program.

Loring Hart, president of St. Joseph’s College in Standish, said that historically, the college market in Maine has three tiers: the public system; an exclusive group of private colleges that includes Bowdoin, Bates and Colby; and smaller, private colleges that have succeeded by specializing.

The improvement of the smaller campuses in the Maine system has upset that balance, Hart said, placing the public system in direct competition with the third tier in many instances.

“When the public sees a school like Farmington, they see that it’s a very satisfactory alternative and that it costs less,” he said.

To compete with tax-subsidized institutions, the small colleges “just have to scramble in every possible way to survive and we have to depend largely on philanthropy,” Hart said.

The growth in Maine runs counter to national trends.

The pool of available high school graduates has dropped by about 100,000 nationwide since 1980, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and that downward trend is expected to continue for the next four years.

However, in 1979 in Maine 43 percent of the state’s 15,504 high school graduates said they intended to go to college, according to the state Department of Education. The state had about the same number of high school graduates in 1989, a total of 15,742, but more than 55 percent of that group said they intended to go college.