ORONO — Graduation at the University of Maine in May was, as always, a highlight of my year.

As a professor of mechanical engineering, I teach in one of the three original programs at UMaine. Graduation marks success for the students who I have come to know and respect during their time at Maine’s flagship research university.

The University of Maine is unique as the land grant college of Maine. The Maine College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts had its origins with a senator from Vermont, Justin Smith Morrill, who left school at 15 and then developed his business expertise right here in Maine.

Morrill was a businessman, and his father was a blacksmith. He understood agriculture and the industries that were the foundation of the 19th-century economy.

While the Morrill Act, which provided the seed funding for the university, ensured that military tactics and liberal and classical studies would be a part of these institutions, these land grant colleges were first and foremost envisioned as economic engines of the state. The graduates would be farmers and practical engineers who understood the classical foundations of democracy in order to manage local affairs as free men and landowners.

The land grant college was revolutionary with the emphasis on class mobility through liberal and practical higher education of what they called the “industrial classes.” These ideas are deeply rooted in American ideals of economic opportunity through independent initiative, instead of opportunity based on inheritance or family tradition.

This expansive vision of public higher education helped to create the modern American economy, but now these institutions are under attack. The greatest threat to these engines of the modern economy is a belief that opportunity is inherited and that higher education should be segregated by class.

Highly selective and well-funded private institutions increasingly stand in contrast with repeated cuts to public higher education. Even the children of the men and women who are the caretakers of the public universities are abandoning these institutions in favor of opportunities afforded by the privilege of their birth.

An educational institution that maintains high standards while being accessible to a wide range of students is a threat to some segments of our society. By cutting state funding to high-performing public institutions, the economic ladder provided by higher education and technical education is removed. This approach protects inherited privilege and undercuts our economy and our democratic institutions.

Beyond the land grant university in Orono, all of the leaders of higher education in Maine face unprecedented challenges.

Maine needs to provide a wide range of educational and training opportunities for its citizens. Training as a diesel mechanic allows us to keep our fishing boats and skidders moving, but these practical programs are expensive.

Engineering, nursing or dental hygiene do not provide the same head count per dollar as sitting in a large classroom listening to a lecture. Programs that demand mentoring by professionals are exactly the type of classes that cannot be taught online.

The core skills of a nurse, a mechanic or an engineer demand a two-way interaction between an expert teacher and the student. The costly and highly individualized education of a Ph.D. chemical engineer may provide the innovation that will sustain our paper industry; however, it currently has less value in the student credit accounting system created by the University of Maine System than an adult learner who finishes a general studies degree or a law degree.

No one should misunderstand the costs: Quality applied higher education is not cheap. This cost is especially apparent if it is provided in an environment that, in the words of the Morrill Act, does not “exclude other scientific and classical studies.”

The current emphasis by the University of Maine System is on providing a low-cost degree based on metrics of head count per tuition dollar while minimizing the cost of highly trained faculty.

In critical fields of study, cutting faculty is simply an economic race to the bottom. The University of Maine needs to recommit to the “liberal and practical education of the industrial classes.”

The economy has changed dramatically in the last 150 years; however, these changes have just increased the need for the flagship university.

Graduation is a reminder of the mission. Booker T. Washington said, “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” That is exactly the tradition of excellence from which the land grant colleges emerged. These graduates are the key to the economic future of Maine.

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