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 admitted that fall. Today, the university is home to 11,989 undergraduate and graduate students. To learn more about UMaine’s history, visit the 150th anniversary website.
- 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 2021 national guides to best colleges, including The Princeton Review and Fiske Guide to Colleges
- One of the nation’s top 50 green colleges by The Princeton Review
- 2015 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation
- 110,000 alumni worldwide
- 150-year legacy
- Campus envisioned by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and his firm
- UMaine campus was designated as an arboretum in 2003
- UMaine has been a tobacco-free campus since 2011
- 16 UMaine Cooperative Extension offices and five Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station research farms throughout the state offer outreach in every Maine county
- Maine’s partner in helping prepare the state for the 21st century
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Students from 50 states and 81 countries
- Enrollment: 11,989 undergraduate and graduate students
- 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, 89 individual and team conference championships in the last 10 years
- Maine Bound recreational activities
- Community engagement — from volunteerism to internships — igniting passion in students, and helping address issues globally and locally
- Birthplace of Phi Kappa Phi in 1897
- More than 100 degree programs through which students can earn graduate certificates, master’s, doctoral or professional science master’s degrees
- 16:1 student-faculty ratio
- Tuition: In state — $9,240 (2020–21), Out of State — $30,030 (2020–21)
- Student research spanning the breadth and depth of undergraduate and graduate studies
- World-class faculty who are leading researchers and scholars in their fields, mentoring students
- One of the nation’s oldest honors programs
- Marine sciences research facility in Walpole
- Ranked among the top public universities for research by the National Science Foundation
- Maine’s only public research university
- Maine’s land grant, sea grant and space grant university
- 15 signature and emerging areas of excellence
- 17 dedicated interdisciplinary research centers and institutes
- Faculty and students conduct research in every county in Maine, on all continents and in all the oceans of the world
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The National Science Foundation has ranked UMaine among the top third of public institutions engaged in research
- UMaine is classified as a High Research Activity Institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
- Over $104 million in research awards in FY20
- Over $165 million in research and development expenditures in FY20
- 437 master’s and 62 Ph.D.s awarded in 2019–20