There now can be absolutely no serious doubt that the key to Michigan’s economic survival is preparing more young people for the new global economy – as fast as this state possibly can.
But so far, it’s not happening.
A report released this month by the Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reveals that the chances of any Michigan ninth-grader enrolling in college by age 19 is only 38 percent. That’s down from 41 percent in 1991, back before the computer revolution.
Why is this? One big factor: The affordability of college in our state, according to the center, a non-profit research outfit concerned with improving access to higher education. Michigan, in fact, received a big fat “F” on the center’s recent report card. And no wonder: Over the past five years, state support for colleges and universities has declined by more than 20 percent.
Reduced state support leads inevitably to increased college costs. Even after financial aid is factored in, the share of an average Michigan family’s income needed to cover costs at a state university has gone from 28 percent to 36 percent over the past few years.
This isn’t a one-dimensional problem, to be sure. Over the past five years, inflation-adjusted tuition has gone up by nearly 40 percent at our state universities. Over that same time, family median incomes have declined by double digits.
Michigan’s report card didn’t carry all bad news. We ranked A- in the benefits citizens derived from a college degree – one more proof how essential higher education is today. We showed improvement in the number of adults 18-24 who were enrolled in some kind of post-high school education. That was up to 42 percent compared with 35 percent in 1992.
But ominously, enrollment of adults from 25 to 49 in college or retraining programs dropped slightly, to 4.4 percent. In coming years, this figure is going to need to go way, way up.
Certainly, there are lots of reasons other than money that young people don’t go to college. Some want to go into a trade without getting a degree. Others come from an unstable or impoverished family background, which makes doing anything serious very tough.
And some family cultures simply don’t value higher education – something that now has to change, if their children are to survive.
But preliminary findings from the Kalamazoo Promise, a program that provides graduates from Kalamazoo public schools with free college tuition, suggest the high cost of college truly is a big barrier. Some (including yours truly) want to look carefully at the components of the Promise to see if it could be retooled into a “Michigan Promise,” a kind of GI Bill for Michigan residents.
Sure, that would cost a lot. But what kind of return do we get from the billions we spend warehousing tens of thousands of felons at $40,000 a year each? Do you think our money is better spent subsidizing countless special interest claims from the past?
If Michigan is going to succeed in an increasingly competitive globalizing economy, we’re going to have to hugely increase the percentage of high school graduates who get a college degree – and then decide to stay in Michigan.
We aren’t doing very well on that score, the center found:
“Internationally, Michigan not only ranks very low in the proportion of certificates and degrees produced, but it was outpaced by such low- performing nations as Poland and the Slovak Republic.”
What about the idea that popular perception there’s a “brain drain,” with highly educated Michiganders leaving the state in droves? That’s somewhat overblown, Jim Rogers, manager of data for the Southeast Michigan Council of
Governments, told the Detroit Free Press. In fact, Michigan’s population is increasing, although at a relatively slow rate.
Most of the increase is due to new births and an influx of foreign immigrants. And Michigan’s population of college graduates is in fact increasing, not declining. Between 2001 and 2004, Michigan had a net increase of 35,700 people with a bachelor’s degree of more, according to the U.S. Census.
But most of that came from overseas immigrants with college degrees.
During those same three years, 61,800 college-educated foreigners arrived here from places like Canada, India and China.
Unfortunately, simple math shows that means something like a net 26,000 degree-winners left the state during the same period.
There’s some truth in the popular perception of young college grads migrating to places like Chicago. Most likely to leave: Young graduates who come to Michigan universities from out of state. Barely one in 10 of them end up settling here, while more than 70 percent of in-state college graduates remain in Michigan.
Conclusions? First, we need drastically to increase the percentage of Michiganders who go to college and get degrees. If affordability is a problem, we’d better figure out how to support state universities so they don’t have to charge such high tuition.
We need to ask the universities to exercise maximum budget restraint to keep the costs of college affordable – and Lansing needs to make it possible for them to do so.
Second, we should be active in recruiting college graduates from around the world.
Before you snarl at this, consider what happened in Vancouver, Canada, in the 1960’s, when word that China was going to take over Hong Kong caused panic there. Vancouver offered any family with $1 million in liquid assets automatic citizenship and a permission to work in Canada. Today, Vancouver is one of the most thriving and prosperous cities in North America. Maybe we might learn something by talking with our thousands of college-educated, energetic and ambitious immigrants.
“Why did you come? How’s it going?” we should ask, and then pop the big question: “What can we do to get more people like you?”
Phil Power is a longtime observer of politics, economics and education issues in Michigan. He would be pleased to hear from readers at ppower@hcnnet.com. These opinions and others expressed in Phil Power’s columns are individual opinions and do not in any way represent official policy positions of the Center For Michigan.
4 Comments
It’s surprsing that so few people in the 25 to 49 age range are retraining, but back in the day (the 1990’s) a trade was supposed to be the way to go. I was wrong and ended up seeing my wages drop by 50% in 1996. We lost everything as a result. Now I’m back in school, antcipating the day when I can work at something I want to do, not just something I can do. Times are changing, and we need to change ourselves. Government is either unable, or unwilling to help, and employers are not in the business of education for the most part.
I dont know. i have cousins in college now and it seems to me they have more options and better guidance than ever before when i was in school in the 80s.
And besides that, isnt our state putting people into retraining right now that have lost jobs?
In fact one of my friends at church is going back to school to go into healthcare and he was laid off from manufacturing after about 10-12 yrs in it. And he has some of his school paid for by displaced worker programs.
But i do have to agree, that the cost of college in this state has skyrocketed in recent years and seem to be going up faster than inflation. Why is that? i would love to see where the costs are in large colleges to find out what they are spending their state aid, tuition, grants, and investment on.
My wife and I raised 7 children and they all graduated from major universities. There degrees were 3 engineers 1 teacher 1 physician assistant 1 supply chain management and 1 in marketing. The house hold income was never over $40.000 a year. I give a lot credit for this to my wife of 41 years she was willing to go without a lot of the things that a lot of people consider necessaties. It takes more than money to educated a child it takes education from home.