The University of Maine was established as the Maine College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts under the provisions of the Morrill Act, approved by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. In 1897, the original name changed to the University of Maine. The institution opened Sept. 21, 1868 with 12 students and two faculty members. Today, the university is home to 9,297 undergraduate students, 1,625 graduate students. To learn more about UMaine’s history, visit the 150th anniversary website.
Points of pride
- Maine’s public research university with a focus on undergraduate and graduate research throughout Maine and around the world
- 15 Signature and Emerging Areas of Excellence
- Featured in multiple 2015 guides to best colleges, including The Princeton Review
- One of the nation’s top 50 green colleges by The Princeton Review
- 2015 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation
- 107,000 alumni worldwide
- Campus designed by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted
- UMaine campus was designated as an arboretum in 2003
- 16 UMaine Cooperative Extension offices and five research field stations throughout the state
Student life
- Students from 46 U.S. states and territories, and 65 countries
- Enrollment: 10,922; 9,297 undergraduate
- Most comprehensive academic offerings in the state
- World-class faculty committed to mentoring and actively engaging students in research and scholarship
- More than 200 student clubs and organizations
- 15 miles of running, biking and cross-country skiing trails on campus
- Maine’s only NCAA Division I athletics program, 84 individual and team conference championships in the last 10 years
- Maine Bound recreational activities
Academics
- 100 undergraduate majors and academic programs
- 70 master’s degrees and 30 doctoral degrees
- 16:1 student-faculty ratio
- Tuition: Instate — $10,610 (2015–16), Out of State — $28,880 (2015–16)
- One of the nation’s oldest honors programs
- Ranked among the top public universities for research by the National Science Foundation