Although the 2009 budget recommendations released by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Thursday would increase MSU’s state funding by 2.7 percent, or $298 million, some other universities, including the University of Michigan, would receive more.
For example, U-M and Wayne State University, the state’s two other research universities, are each slated to receive a 3.2 percent funding increase.
Wayne State would add $7.2 million to total $226 million in state funding and U-M would add $10.6 million to total $333.6 million in state funding.
Leslee Fritz, spokeswoman for the Office of the State Budget, said the funding recommendations were determined using a weighted formula.
For research universities, 50 percent of the formula was based on students’ annual degree completion, 25 percent on the number of low-income students enrolled, and 25 percent on federal research and commercialization.
For the state’s 12 nonresearch universities, 50 percent of the formula was based on degree completion, but 35 percent was based on low-income student enrollment and 15 percent was based on research.
Fritz said more emphasis was placed on low-income enrollment for nonresearch universities because they don’t have the same research capabilities.
Ian Gray, MSU’s vice president for research and graduate studies, said MSU’s low percentage increase compared to the other research universities could be the result of many different factors, including fewer federal research dollars.
However, he said it is not necessarily a sign that MSU is lagging in research.
“We’ve added a ton more talented and experienced people to our staff the last few years,” he said.
Michael Poterala, director of MSU Technologies, said the governor’s recommendations weren’t based on long-term data.
“They picked one figure from one year, and that’s a joke,” he said.
MSU Technologies is the university’s department in charge of turning research into business, or commercialization.
Poterala said U-M has more sponsored research, but proportionally, MSU has been comparable.
“(U-M) should have more inventions and more commercial dollars,” he said. “It would be silly to think we could compete dollar by dollar with any other institution with that much research capacity.”
Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, said he’s more interested in growing higher education in the state.
It’s been at least six years since the state has had a higher education funding increase, Boulus said.
“If you look at the last six years and factor in enrollment growth and inflation, we’ve lost $2,600 per student annually,” he said. “That’s not acceptable.”
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