Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Maine

17 colleges on the site: 7 public, 10 private nonprofit. Their undergraduates grew 6% in total since fall 2014, to 37,008 today (16 of 17 Maine colleges in the panel).

Explore Maine's colleges

How Maine's colleges changed

The median Maine college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-3%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+40%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

No point for fall 2016 to fall 2021: fewer than 90% of this state's colleges reported.

Acceptance rate

−0.9 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

No point for fall 2016 to fall 2021: fewer than 90% of this state's colleges reported.

Average total cost

-8%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

7 colleges

Private nonprofit

9 colleges

Where Maine's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Maine (in-state)45%
  2. MA12%
  3. NH5%
  4. NY4%
  5. CT4%
  6. CA3%
  7. TX2%
  8. FL2%

Public:

20% → 24% (7 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

71% → 77% (10 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
3,311
Outflow
2,388
Net
+923

Maine's colleges enroll 1.4 first-years from other states for every Maine resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. University of Maine22%
  2. Colby College14%
  3. University of New England13%
  4. Bowdoin College13%
  5. Bates College12%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in Maine

The same as the national lists, restricted to Maine's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +54.0% (7 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Colby College+272.7%5,148 → 19,187
  2. 2Bates College+98.8%5,044 → 10,027
  3. 3Bowdoin College+91.3%6,935 → 13,265
  4. 4University of Southern Maine+54.0%3,781 → 5,822
  5. 5Husson University+38.2%2,066 (fall 2015) → 2,856
  6. 6University of Maine+21.6%11,552 → 14,044
  7. 7University of New England+14.9%4,317 → 4,958

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 7 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −2.9% (10 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Colby College+30.3%1,847 → 2,407
  2. 2Bowdoin College+4.2%1,797 → 1,873
  3. 3Husson University+1.2%2,588 (fall 2015) → 2,618

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 3 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −8.1% (9 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of Southern Maine−21.4%$28,017 → $22,020
  2. 2Husson University−20.7%$28,092 (2015–16) → $22,291
  3. 3Saint Joseph's College of Maine−18.1%$35,557 → $29,112
  4. 4University of Maine−13.8%$28,951 → $24,967
  5. 5Bowdoin College−8.1%$55,289 → $50,795
  6. 6University of New England−6.3%$43,255 → $40,514
  7. 7University of Maine at Farmington−5.4%$22,282 → $21,074
  8. 8Colby College−2.2%$55,156 → $53,965

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 8 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

Maine's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 16 of 17 Maine colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)