FORT KENT (AP) – University of Maine System trustees held out so little hope of expanded state aid that they adopted a two-year budget in which tuition will grow at more than three times the rate of state support.

Trustees who wrapped up their second day of meetings at the University of Maine at Fort Kent approved a budget Monday that calls for a state increase in aid of 2.2 percent effective July 1. Tuition, meanwhile, will go up 7.8 percent.

The $432.1 million budget represents a shift where tuition and fees now account for more than the state pays for higher education in Maine.

Of the total budget, 40.4 percent represents student tuition and fees. State appropriations account for 39.5 percent. The remainder is mostly revenues related to room and board and other sales and services.

And the budget situation could grow more dire. Trustees for the seven-campus system were working against a backdrop of Gov. John Baldacci’s order for state agencies to submit proposals for cutting another 5 percent to balance the state budget.

Chief Financial Officer Joanne Yestramski noted that it would take an additional 9 percent increase in student tuition and fees to cover the $9.2 million loss of state appropriations should the 5 percent reduction be adopted.

Other options that could be considered would include employee layoffs and closing of outreach centers, Yestramski said.

“Nobody likes any of those possibilities,” Chancellor Joseph Westphal said. “We will do everything we can to minimize the impact.”

Trustees have been grappling with declining state appropriations at a time when fixed expenses have increased considerably, in large part because of growing health insurance costs.

Since 2002, the cost of providing employee health insurance has risen 87.3 percent, or $25.4 million, according to the system office.