COLUMN: Voice of people needed to fix higher education in Michigan
A major theme of Monday night’s Griffin Policy Forum was how the amount of funding a government and society set aside for education gives insight into how much they value education.
Over the past 30 years, the ratio of state funding for universities to tuition has flipped from 75-25 percent to 25-75 percent, meaning that the cost of higher education for students has gone up significantly.
Why is it that higher education has seen such a hit in funding? University President George Ross argued it is because we “haven’t put higher education at a strategic level," and that “the state needs to step up and make higher education a priority.”
How do we as Michiganders accomplish this?
State Representative Bob Genetski, R-Saugatuck, has introduced House Bill 5000 which would create a “state university system restructuring commission” tasked with analyzing the operating structure of Michigan’s universities and determining if the constitutional requirement that each state university has a separate, autonomous governing board is the best thing for Michigan.
This commission would report back to the governor and the legislature about what they think is the best course of action to help fix Michigan’s education system.
The commission will not be able to make many sweeping recommendations on how universities are run unless it suggests adding a central governing body in place of the autonomous boards of the universities, a move that would not likely make it far with the voters, and is not in the best interest of the universities or students.
What this commission can do is highlight the problems with the higher education system in Michigan so that the citizens become engaged. Ultimately, if Michiganders as a whole feel the system is broken, it is up to us to fix it.
If higher education is going to receive more funding, then one of two things has to happen: revenue has to increase through tax increases or spending has to decrease in some other area of the budget. It is our duty as citizens to tell our legislators what we feel is important. If you value education as more important than other areas, it is your responsibility to tell our legislators that you feel money for higher education should be taken from that budget.
If you feel tax increases are needed to fund universities, then advocate for a tax increase, where the revenue from that increase goes strictly to higher education.
If Michigan is going to succeed, we have to place a great importance on higher education, and the acceptance of a 25-75 percent state funding to tuition ratio says that our citizens have not yet done that.
There is no easy solution to fixing higher education in Michigan, but an open discussion that looks at every potential option is a good and necessary start.
Editor’s note: Nathan Inks is currently president of College Republicans
