State representatives Alma Wheeler-Smith and Rebekkah Warren (both Democrats from Washtenaw County) deserve both kudos and a serious audience for a new proposal to provide free tuition to Michigan college students and require mandatory pre-school education.
The immediate reaction in many corners is a wholesale shaking of heads because the plan would require a 1.2 percent hike in the state sales tax. But before we all get to the nasty funding question, we have to seriously consider the context for the proposal.
First, reams of research led states to greatly expand pre-K programs in recent years. And growing public sentiment (including many participants in the Michigan’s Defining Moment Public Engagement Campaign) point to the need to intensify preschool education for all students.
Second, the Kalamazoo Promise is leading new groups of students to college, propping up real estate values in Southwest Michigan, and creating a collective community will for intensified education.
Third, Michigan is in an arms race with other states who are considering or launching, statewide scholarship guarantee programs, as the Center for Michigan documented in our “Swift Gazelles & Lumbering Lions” report.
Fourth, the state has a long way to go to reach our education goals. Nearly five years ago, the Cherry Commission issued the ambitious call to double the number of college graduates in 10 years. We’ve seen good progress, including the passage of more intense educational standards and an emerging trend of rising test scores as a result. As of 2007, the percentage of Michigan adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 24.4 percent (up from 22 percent in 2000) but a far cry from the more than 40 percent that would be required in 2015 to reach the Cherry Commission goals.
Fifth, the Wheeler-Smith/Warren plan heightens debate over Michigan’s ugly higher ed funding cycle. Each year, universities face the prospect of funding cuts from legislators who have viewed higher ed spending as discretionary. They’ve cut the higher ed budget under the reasoning that the costs can be passed on to the students, which is exactly what universities have done by raising tuition. The real losers in all this are the students and their families, who are now paying more than $1 BILLION per year in student loans to cover tuition at just the 15 state universities. As the Ann Arbor News noted, the Wheeler-Smith/Warren plan would take away the tuition guarantee for students attending state universities who could not hold their annual tuition increases to the cost of inflation. Universities will, in turn, argue that they need consistent state funding to hold the line on tuition costs. The scholarship guarantee plan has the potential to tighten the circle of responsibility for funding higher ed and managing higher ed costs.
Now, for that nasty funding question. The bitter reality for innovative proposals like they have a snowball’s chance of winning public support until the public and powerful business groups can see a much greater demonstration of public sector reform and sacrifice. The Center for Michigan has logged more than $1.5 billion in potential reforms and savings in state government. A legislative commission will soon release hundreds of millions more in potential reform choices. Until Lansing gets serious about these kinds of reform issues, innovative public policy that comes with a pricetag will, sadly, be laughed out of the State Capitol.
4 Comments
Don’t be adding any more taxes on redisential properties, my God we don’t own them now, and being on pension, we pay to damn much now, and really are discriminated against for all money earners are paying into the system.
Want a new tax do away with residential, farm, and business property taxes and replace it with an income tax to cover everything.
Don’t spend and feel the State has to payout as professional sports player receive.
That is what got us in trouble, you tried to keep up with them, but lost.
Thank you for the positive comments on MI FUTURE. You closed your article with an observation: “Now, for that nasty funding question.” Yes, Michigan has a structural deficit approaching $1 billion. We have also eliminated some programs and services that many of us consider extremely important, if not essential. That raises the “structural” deficit well beyond a billion.
We may be able to eliminate tax expenditures, close loopholes and adopt “reforms” that the 94th Legislature, the Center for Michigan and the legislative efficiency commission have identified. That would probably cure our current structural deficit. But we can only spend those dollars for that purpose. They will not cover MI FUTURE.
MI FUTURE is a big idea that requires bold action and $2 billion in new funding. Michigan has serious challenges. We have to use this moment to fundamentally change our ability to recover. Waiting only puts us farther behind states with a larger cohort of better educated, more highly skilled residents. They are not waiting to press their advantage. The task of eliminating the structural deficit and finding dollars to restore critical programs runs on a parallel, not overlapping, path to the financing of MI FUTURE. We can delay, but we will loose.
Does anyone think it was a bit nutty to set a goal of doubling the number of college graduates while working to double the cost of tuition through funding cuts? If you charge more for something you will likely get less of it.
Anyway I think raising taxes to spend more on colleges is nutty. Somehow colleges need to become serious about controlling their costs. The UAW eventually drove buyers elsewhere with their expensive contracts. Colleges are doing the same thing now with persistent higher than inflation tuition hikes. Eventually society will find a way around them and they will have real problems.
They aren’t the sacred cow they think they are.
I just want to respond to Fred Akers….this wouldn’t be money going to colleges directly the way it is now….this is money that will go directly to families to pay to go to college.
This is a good thing not a bad thing.