The narrative about declining college-age students is only partly true, at least for the next few years. The decline in HS class sizes is being offset by increases in graduation rates. So the total number of HS grads isn't declining too much (yet). This will probably change by 2025 though, both as a national trend and in Maine. I was just doing some casual research on this topic lately, and was surprised it's not as dire as people seem to think.

Not disagreeing about all the missed potential it seems like there is with UMO, or the U Maine system in general.