Maine

2,053

engineers a year
at China’s rate

Source: IPEDS Completions, 3-yr avg AY 2022–25 (NCES; 2024–25 provisional), bachelor’s degrees, CIP 14 + 11; China 33.2%: PRC Ministry of Education, 2022 bachelor’s graduates by discipline (NSF NCSES S&E Indicators Fig. HED-30: 32.8%, 2020); Population: Census NST-EST2025.

← #49 Nebraska#50 of 51#51 District of Columbia →

Maine at China’s rate would graduate 2,583 engineers a year. It graduates 530.

Maine produces 530 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 7,781 total, among the weakest engineering producers in the country, from 12 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 2,583. Output is growing (+24.6% over three years). Gap Score: 20% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 1,500 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 44% of them.

Engineering + CS share of bachelor’s degrees

6.8%

Below the national 12.3%; 21% of the way to China’s 33.2%.

Missing engineers a year at China’s rate

2,053

1,415 at a conservative 25%, and 1,026 at 20%.

Three-year trend, share of degrees

6.47.36.7

Output up 24.6% in degrees, 2022-23 to 2024-25.

National rank by share

#50

of 51 by share; #44 per capita, 145 missing engineers per 100k residents (pop. 1.4M).

What they study

49% eng

51% computer science. 20% of the state’s eng+CS output is at the associate level, the two-year pathway.

Job openings a year, engineers + computing + technicians

1,500

44% covered by the state’s own degrees, all levels; #39 of 51 on coverage.

The gap against China’s benchmark

Maine, today6.8%

United States, today12.3%

China benchmark33.2%

2,053 missing engineering and CS bachelor’s degrees a year at China’s 33.2% rate.

Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees

2022–232023–242024–25

Maine is missing 2,053 engineers a year, and its largest producer, University of Maine, graduates just 269. Digital ROTC is designed to add a community-college route into engineering here.

Where Maine’s engineers are made.

12 institutions produce engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in Maine. The top 8 account for 98% of output.

Every producing institution. Circle area = eng+CS bachelor’s degrees per year

University of Maine alone is 51% of the state's output.Swipe the map →

Top producers

#	Institution	Eng+CS / yr	% of its degrees
1	University of Maine	269	15.0%
2	Maine Maritime Academy	62	35.8%
3	University of Southern Maine	55	5.6%
4	University of Maine at Augusta	39	9.0%
5	Colby College	38	6.7%
6	Bowdoin College	33	6.6%
7	Thomas College	13	8.4%
8	Husson University	10	1.9%

Top 8 shown = 98% of state output. 4 more institutions produce the remaining 2%, all shown on the map. Bachelor's degrees, matching the state totals above. IPEDS Completions C2023–C2025, first majors; 3-yr average.

Jobs vs. degrees

Maine's own labor-market projection, 2024–2034, for engineers, computer occupations and engineering technicians, against the degrees the state produces at every level.

Openings against output

Job openings per year (growth + replacement)1,500

Eng + CS degrees produced per year (associate + bachelor’s)660

of which net new jobs per year (growth only)87

Where the openings are

Occupation	Openings / yr
Computer Systems Analysts	200
Software Developers	190
Computer User Support Specialists	150
Civil Engineers	80
Engineering Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other	70
Architectural and Civil Drafters	60

Coverage: degrees ÷ openings

44%

of Maine's projected openings are covered by its own degrees. Rank #39 of 51; U.S.: 54%. Demand: 106 openings per 100k residents (U.S.: 143).

Maine's colleges cover 44% of the engineering, computing and technician jobs its economy opens every year. The other 840 a year, 3x the annual output of University of Maine, must be imported, retrained, or left unfilled.

Openings are the state labor agency’s own 10-year projection: new jobs plus replacing workers who retire or leave the field (BLS method). Not every opening goes to a new graduate, so this is a coverage measure; it does not count vacant positions. Occupations: engineers (SOC 17-2), computer occupations (SOC 15-12) and engineering technicians (SOC 17-3, the associate-degree tier), the jobs CIP 14 + 11 degrees feed; degrees here include associate degrees to match. Source: Maine labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).

Two of Maine's three largest projects have stalled

Maine's largest engineering employers and projects are a defense shipyard, a data center planned at a closed paper mill, and a floating offshore wind port. Two of the three stalled, and the shipyard, which is growing, has to train its own workforce.

General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath

$90M on training

BIW is Maine's largest manufacturer, with about 6,700 employees, a $447 million payroll and $2.5 billion in economic output, per a Wallace Economic Advisors report. It spent $11 million on recruiting from 2016 to 2023 and $90 million on training over five years, and more than half its workforce has fewer than five years of experience. In March 2026 it expanded a free three-week manufacturing technician course, paying a $500 per week stipend, from Southern Maine Community College to Central Maine Community College, where 29 students graduated and 22 got offers.

Spectrum News Maine; Kennebec Journal

Sentinel data center at Androscoggin Mill, Jay

$550M, halted

JGT2 Redevelopment pitched a $550 million data center at the paper mill that closed in 2023, promising 800 to 1,000 construction workers and 125 to 150 permanent high-paying jobs, and Jay voters backed it in March 2026. Gov. Mills vetoed a first-in-the-nation moratorium on data centers over 20 megawatts in April 2026 specifically to protect the project. In June 2026, weeks before a July groundbreaking, operator Sentinel Data Centers said it would not move forward and the project went on hold.

The Maine Monitor; Maine Public

Sears Island offshore wind port, Searsport

$456M denied

Maine DOT sought $456 million in federal money for a $760 million port on state-owned Sears Island, meant to be the first U.S. facility purpose-built for floating turbines and completed by 2029. The grant was denied in October 2024, a separate $16 million design grant was denied after that, and federal offshore wind permitting was frozen in 2025. The engineering and fabrication jobs the port was supposed to anchor have not materialized.

WGME; Maine Public

The drain.

Maine's problem is less that graduates leave than that there are too few of them and the workers around them are old. About 23% of Maine's population is 65 or older, against 18% nationally.

Maine grads staying in Maine

86%

of University of Maine System graduates from Maine stay in state, UMS, May 2025

Out-of-state grads staying

26%

of the System's out-of-state students remain in Maine after graduation, UMS, May 2025

Work at aging firms

39%

of Maine employment in 2022 was at firms where a quarter of workers are over 55, highest in the nation, U.S. Census Bureau, December 2025

Sources: University of Maine System; U.S. Census Bureau; Maine Development Foundation, Measures of Growth

Who’s covering it.

Reporters already cover this, but no one has combined it into a single number the way the Index does.

OutletStoryWhat it covers

Maine Public

Developer halts plans for data center at former Jay paper mill

Jun 2026. The $550 million project the governor spent political capital protecting collapsed weeks before groundbreaking, taking about 100 promised technical jobs with it.

Kennebec Journal

Bath Iron Works expands community college training

Mar 2026. Shows the one pipeline in Maine that works: a free three-week course with a paid stipend that converts community college students directly into shipyard hires.

WGME

Community college is permanently free for all future Maine high school graduates

Apr 2026. Maine made its free community college scholarship permanent after more than 23,000 graduates used it, giving the state a standing tuition mechanism to attach obligations to.

The Maine Monitor

Jay Select Board approves town meeting warrant, backs data center plan

Mar 2026. Documents what a mill town was promised, 800 to 1,000 construction workers and 125 to 150 permanent jobs, before the deal fell apart.

Spectrum News Maine

Report: Bath Iron Works recruitment is up

Nov 2024. Quantifies the cost of building a technical workforce with no pipeline: $11 million on recruiting and $90 million on training, with most of the workforce new to the job.

Maine Public

Bill proposed to block Sears Island wind port

Jan 2025. Tracks the unraveling of Maine's largest planned engineering project after two federal grant denials, $456 million and $16 million.

The fix, in Maine.

Put service behind free tuition

Maine's Free College Scholarship is now permanent and has already enrolled more than 23,000 graduates, but it asks nothing back. Add a Digital ROTC track in engineering technology and computing at the seven community colleges where the state now covers tuition, in exchange for a service commitment to a Maine employer or public agency after the credential.

Scale the BIW model statewide

Bath Iron Works already pays a $500 per week stipend for a three-week course that feeds directly into shipyard jobs, and 22 of 29 Central Maine Community College graduates got offers. Digital ROTC should convert that one-employer pilot into a standing statewide corps, paid enrollment plus a two-year service obligation, open to defense, utilities, hospital IT and municipal engineering.

Tie incentives to seats

Jay was promised 125 to 150 jobs and got none, and the Sears Island port lost $456 million in federal money. Maine should require any project seeking state incentives or a data center approval to fund named engineering and computing seats at the University of Maine and the community colleges, so the pipeline survives when the project does not.

What Digital ROTC would fund

Digital ROTC: federal student loans that cover two years of engineering, computer science, or cybersecurity school at a community college, whether those years end in an associate degree or transfer into a bachelor’s program. The loans are forgiven in full after 24 to 36 months of service in government technology roles. In Maine, 20% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.

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