During Monday night's Griffin Policy forum, University President George Ross said the state government should "step up and make higher education a priority."

About 130 students, faculty, staff and community members attended the forum at 7 p.m. in the Powers Hall Ballroom.

Ross was joined by Michael Boulus, executive director of the presidents’ council and state universities of Michigan, Don Gilmer, past chairman of Michigan house appropriation and higher education appropriation committees, and Lou Glazer, President of Michigan Future Inc.

Peter Luke of the Booth News Service served as the moderator, asking questions submitted by the audience along with his own.

"We have a responsibility to students, the state needs to understand the importance of this and find funding," Ross said.

Gilmer agreed with Ross.

"We should be long past this discussion by now," Gilmer said. "We must fund what we value, plain and simple."

State aid provides an average of 25 percent of Michigan universities' budgets — but only 16 percent for Central Michigan University. Just 30 years ago, state aid made up 78 percent of the university budget, Ross said.

"If we received (the) majority of our funding from the state, tuition would be as low as it was 30 years ago," Ross said. "The economy is to blame."

Boulus said the corrections department now receives more state funding than higher education, since universities have an alternate source of revenue — tuition.

House Bill 5000, which proposes to create a commission to analyze governance of Michigan universities, received criticism from the panel.

Glazer and Boulus said passing the bill would fix what is not broken. The panelists were not in favor of the long-term possibility of combining all 14 university leadership boards into one.

"Centralizing the system would be a huge mistake," Glazer said. "Besides funding, what's wrong with it?"

Ross said beginning to define community colleges as institutions of higher learning will only make the current problems worse.

"There are currently 15,000 students at Central receiving financial aid," he said. "The state is having trouble funding the 15 major universities, how will it manage funding 43 of them?"

Having a system in place to regulate all of these universities in the state will make efficiency impossible and organization of programs and budgeting will also be much more difficult, Ross said.

The trend toward non-traditional students was also discussed. The panel agreed that although many students are taking classes online and entering college at later ages, the campus experience is not in danger of disappearing.

"We will always have campus-based education," Ross said. "What will change is what we teach and how we teach it. College isn't just about what happens in the classrooms and laboratories, it's what happens in the dorms and all around the school."

Glazer agreed with Ross about the value of campus-based learning.

"Students are willing to pay huge tuitions to be in these places together," he said. "The experience is not replicable."

Ross also named accountability as something to improve upon.

"Central needs to be held accountable and more transparent with discussions on how to change," Ross said. "The university has made significant changes on how we operate as an institution."

Mount Pleasant senior Rachel Harvey said discussions like the forum are necessary for progress in the issue.

"We really need to look at investing into higher education, as well as K-12," she said.

Kinde sophomore Caitlin Homrich said she wished the quality of education was discussed more, rather than the funding.

"I appreciate that they all got together to talk about this in this way, it shows that they care about this highly important issue," she said.

Despite the uncertainty about future state funding, Ross said he is still hopeful.

"I remain optimistic about the future of higher education, but we must be realistic of the challenges we will inevitably face," he said. "We must push for autonomy, and make education a priority"