AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage joined leaders of Maine’s university and community college systems Monday for the signing of a landmark agreement that aims to ease student transfers between the systems.

University of Maine System Chancellor James Page and Maine Community College System Acting President Derek Langhauser signed the deal at the University of Maine at Augusta campus.

For the state’s two higher education systems, the hope is that this will help improve degree attainment and completion rates by making switches simpler and college more affordable.

“It is not where you start, but how far you go that matters,” Page said. “With this agreement we are ensuring the same learning outcomes, same expectations, and same credit for our students across all 14 of Maine’s public colleges and universities so Maine learners can more easily and affordably progress along the path to advancement.”

The agreement, a memorandum of understanding between the systems, will allow students who complete up to 35 general education credits to transfer that credit block on to any community college or university campus in the system. This means students could fulfill these general education requirements at a lower cost at one of the state’s community colleges before transferring to a four-year school. Other students might decide to leave one of Maine’s universities to attain a less costly community college degree.

To this point, transfers have been guided by more than 150 individual “articulation agreements” between individual programs at individual campuses. Those agreements have determined whether specific courses can transfer and count toward the completion of a degree or certificate.

“This is by far the most comprehensive, detailed and multileveled set of works that we’ve ever done together,” said UMS Chief Student Affairs Officer Rosa Redonnett, who has been leading the two-year effort to iron out the agreement. She has been with the university system for 28 years and says she can’t recall a collaboration of this significance on the systemic level.

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