Michigan College Students Protest Higher Ed Cuts

LANSING, Mich. - About 200 college students waved flags from the state's 15 public universities and held signs saying "Put the money where our minds are" during a Thursday protest of proposed cuts in state aid to universities.

The students were the latest group to rally at the Capitol against Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's budget and policy proposals. Snyder wants to cut more than 20 percent of state funding for the 15 universities in the budget year that starts Oct. 1. He has offered to limit the cut to 15 percent for universities that keep 2011-12 tuition increases below 7.1 percent.

Students participating in the rally said tuition is already too high. Some lost a state scholarship worth up to $4,000 when lawmakers eliminated the Michigan Promise Grant in 2009, and many have had to take out student loans.

Speakers at the rally said it's hard to reconcile Snyder's goal of reinventing the economy with his plan to cut state aid that would help keep universities affordable for the state's future workers.

"Tuition's been going higher and higher and higher," said Cardi DeMonoco Jr., president of the Student Association of Michigan. "When will the legislators realize this isn't the area to cut?"

DeMonoco said the small but spirited crowd came from as far away as Michigan Technological University in the Upper Peninsula and as close as nearby Michigan State University.

Rep. Mark Meadows, an East Lansing Democrat whose district includes Michigan State, told the students he sided with them.

"Does anybody here think a 22 percent cut to education is too much?" he asked the crowd, noting that other areas of the budget haven't been cut as much.

Tuition and fees at public universities averaged $9,410 this academic year. They've risen 80 percent since 2002-03, far more than the 15 percent increase in inflation over that period.

Even without Snyder's proposed cut, state funding for university operations has dropped 12 percent over the past eight years, or 37 percent once inflation is taken into account, according to the House Fiscal Agency.

The governor has proposed keeping funding for community colleges as the current level in the next budget, but he wants to cut spending for university operations by 15 percent, or $222 million. He'd cut 5 percent to 10 percent more from universities that didn't keep their 2011-12 tuition increases to below 7.1 percent, giving $83 million instead to schools that didn't exceed the limit.

Snyder, who holds bachelor's, master's and law degrees from the University of Michigan, has frequently talked of the importance of higher education and his support for universities.

But in his Feb. 17 budget message, he said cuts are needed in light of Michigan's estimated $1.4 billion budget shortfall. He challenged universities to "implement reforms that will keep tuition in check and restrain spending."

University leaders say they've decreased spending and are being faced with the double whammy of trying to serve more students with less state money. Saginaw Valley State University President Eric Gilbertson told a Senate committee Wednesday that the school in University Center got $4,500 per student in state aid 10 years ago, but just $3,200 this year. That amount would drop to $2,800 under the governor's budget proposal.

Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon said her school was expecting a 13 percent decrease, given past budget cuts. She called Snyder's much larger decrease "brutal."

DeMonoco said higher education needs to be a top priority in Michigan.

"The Legislature's not funding it enough," he said. "How are you going to reinvent Michigan without higher education?"