MSU is keen to the economic troubles students and their families are facing, but it must be aware that such woes have a long life span.
President Lou Anna K. Simon sent an e-mail to students detailing the new Adverse Economic Circumstances Fund, which will “assist students whose families suffer serious financial setbacks due to the loss of income.” More than $500,000 has been set aside for this fund and the university hopes it will prevent students from dropping out of college.
To even initiate such a program could indicate that a troubling number of students are considering or have already disenrolled.
With students whose parents wake up each day not knowing whether they will have a job or if their retirement funds will remain intact, it’s indeed a scary time to be committed to a four-year university.
Financial aid is now more important than ever to an expanding group of people. And for that reason, $500,000 doesn’t seem like nearly enough.
If students are truly in dire financial straits, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to seek $2,000 in aid from the university. But that would only cover 250 students at a university that claimed 36,072 undergraduate students and 9,973 graduate students as of fall 2007.
And while we are all feeling the effects of the financial crisis, the wound won’t scab for possibly another 10 years.
MSU must extend this new program for as long as possible, and the fact it even started this program signals the university is looking out for its students. But looking out for students and protecting them are two different things. One is an act of tacit involvement — the other active.
The financial situation is so dismal in part because, after years of easily accessible money, we are in a period when lenders are clutching green until their knuckles turn white.
There might not be much availability this year in terms of student loans, but the university must extend this program for several years. Money is bound to loosen up again, but the university cannot falter on this effort until then.
The state of Michigan is hurting financially as well, with public universities receiving just a 1 percent increase in funding this year. At the same time, MSU’s tuition rose 6.8 percent in June for in-state students and 7.1 percent for out-of-state students. This fund is clearly necessary, as tuition increases show no sign of coming down and the state has made little progress on the tumultuous road to recovery.
If this fund cannot survive on the sources from which it has been pooled, the university must look for other options, and that could be tapping into its $1.439 billion endowment. These donations are ultimately aimed at helping students and the university, as does the Adverse Economic Circumstances Fund. By using the university endowment to keep students at MSU, faculty and programs will remain as well.
Or the university could ride this financial crisis out. It seems to be working well for the rest of the nation.
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