Trustees of the University of Maine system recently met in Orono. Numerous items were on the agenda, including a likely request for additional state funding.

Higher education and need for a strong commitment to funding it in Maine has almost become a sacred cow. It’s worth debating, however, which aspects of higher education the state can afford, and if a new funding formula might yield greater impact, especially in Lewiston-Auburn.

In the Industrial Revolution, communities with significant economic expansion had access to the right raw materials. For the towns and cities along the Androscoggin River, abundant forests and the flowing river brought prosperity.

Today’s economy is no different. Growth occurs where the right raw materials are plentiful. In current economic development strategies of America’s fastest growing communities, the most important raw material is knowledge, in particular the knowledge in the minds of the workforce.

Whether in science, health, business or other, concentration of knowledge – and the institutions that cultivate it – attracts investment. So, when trustees request a 4.5 percent increase in their state allocation for two straight years, boosting their budget to more than $500 million, the specific strategy for these monies should be questioned.

In a mobile society, in which the movement of people and the businesses that employ them are critical to creating opportunities for communities, does Maine’s current model of education delivery make sense?

Many in southern Maine, the University of Southern Maine in particular, argue that state funds should be allocated by enrollment. The argument is it’s unfair for one campus in the University of Maine system, Orono, to receive about half of the system’s overall budget.

While those talking points resonate with political types, it misses the point of why programs cost more at one campus, compared to another. (The cost of an engineering education in Orono is one example of a costly program.)

Yet advances in technology and online education delivery should, for a rural state like Maine, provide innovative opportunities to deliver educational programs statewide, through in-class courses and distance education strategies.

But higher education is a bureaucracy; coordination and cooperation compromises institutional power. The futile attempt to combine UMaine campuses in 2005 was met with political interference to protect parochial interests. It’s hard to fight rhetoric and find leadership at the same time.

What is lost in those parochial fights are solutions for expanding access to valuable educational programs like business, science and engineering – without creating redundancies – to under-served regions like Lewiston-Auburn, which must have these offerings to grow its community and economy.

In this working class community, built on backs of hard-working mill laborers, the notion of college educations as critical for personal and professional advancement took awhile to take hold. Enrollment growth at Andover College and Central Maine Community College in recent years is evidence this mentality is changing.

But if a business woman working in downtown Lewiston – Maine’s second largest city – wishes to pursue her MBA, what are her options for studying at UMaine? She can either travel to Orono, Belfast or Portland, but not stay in Lewiston. Should this be the case?

Or a young man, with a family, graduates from a technical program at CMCC and wishes to pursue his bachelor’s in engineering while continuing to work. His only option to stay in Maine is to move to Orono.

If the state is going to invest more than $500 million each year in developing the raw material to grow Maine’s economy, it is time for Lewiston-Auburn to get its share of access to educational programs, instead of being limited by its geography in the education bureaucracy.

Jonathan LaBonte, of New Auburn, is a columnist for the Sun Journal. E-mail: [email protected].