NEPR interviews Vice President Wincowski about Flagship Match
Joel Wincowski, the vice president for enrollment management at the University of Maine, spoke with New England Public Radio for the report, “New England colleges pursue out-of-state students with discounts.” Wincowski spoke about UMaine’s Flagship Match, a competitive scholarship program that guarantees academically qualified, first-year students from several states will pay the same tuition and fee rate as their home state’s flagship institution. The program specifically targets students in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Wincowski, who helped devise the program, said colleges in the region are under pressure to think creatively to attract students because the number graduating high school these days is declining. “It’s declining in every state in New England right now and Maine is a very small state so you can only draw so many students out of the state of Maine,” he said, adding UMaine has seen a 40 percent jump in out-of-state enrollment, with the biggest increase from Massachusetts. “The more students from out of state we bring in, the stronger our workforce in the state of Maine will be because I believe 20 percent of our students will stay in state,” he said.