Michigan Promise should only be given to those who need it

On Thursday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm revealed her plan to bring back the Michigan Promise as a $4,000 tax credit to students who work at least one year in Michigan after they graduate.

I question whether this is the right way to try to bring back the Promise, but Granholm does have the right idea in mind, and that is that some people need to be “weeded out” from getting the Promise.

It’s simple math.

Either the amount of Promise money per student must go down, or the amount of students getting the money must go down.

Without one of these, the state lacks the money to fund the Promise.

One of my ideas to reform the Promise was to add restrictions to who is eligible on two fronts: merit and need.

If the minimum GPA requirement and ACT scores were raised, some lower-tier students would be disqualified, meaning less money would be needed for the Promise.

In addition to changing the merit requirements, reforms must be made so that people who clearly do not need the scholarship are not receiving it.

If a student is getting a full ride scholarship, does Michigan really need to be giving that student additional money?

If we were in a state of economic stability, the state could afford to do this.

In the future, the Promise will hopefully be restored back to the level at which it was before.

But until then, eliminating the Promise for people with scholarships would be a step in the right direction.

On another note regarding the Promise, I wonder if losing it was really as bad as people have been saying it was.

I have heard CMU students saying the Promise was the only reason that they stayed in Michigan.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that.

Are you really telling me that a $4,000 scholarship is what convinced you to stay in Michigan?

$4,000 does not even cover a semester here at CMU.

When you factor in the huge increase in tuition that a student would face by going to an out-of-state college, $4,000 is miniscule.

Now, to a community college student, $4,000 can pay for a lot, and this leads me to my final reform proposal: restore the Promise to community college students first.

$4,000 goes a lot further at a community college, and it is here where the Promise can help Michigan students most.

I would love to see the Promise brought back for everybody, but $4,000 is not a major impact for CMU students, especially when you consider the fact that it was only given out in increments of $1,000 per year.

While I may disagree with Granholm’s specifics of her proposal, I give her credit for applying the right principle.

Hopefully the Legislature will work with her to reform the Promise so that it can at least be brought back for some students.