MSU 2nd in Mich. for appropriations
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MSU and other universities in the state are feeling the pressure from a potential cut in state funding. MSU ranks second in state appropriations only to the University of Michigan out of the 15 public universities, according to data from the state Senate Fiscal Agency.
Although there’s no set formula on how to divvy up appropriations among universities, why and how much a school receives changes from year to year.
Cuts to higher education funding come as the state tries to get out of an approximately $1.8 billion deficit, said state Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Township, who is on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education.
“In these tough budget times, the amount of additional funding has been less than in the past,” Kahn said. “If you’re talking 10 years, about 70 percent would have come from the state and 30 percent from tuition. Now it’s the reverse.”
How to cut the pie
Deciding how much each university gets is a process that has evolved based on history, said state Sen. Tom George, R-Texas Township, who is the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education.
“We look at what (the universities) got last year and then we increase or decrease it by the same percent,” he said. “I’m not necessarily saying that’s good or fair, but that’s what happens. It goes back over decades to look, it would reflect their research status, it may reflect political pull at varying times in history — it’s not a specific formula.”
The number of degrees conferred or the number of students isn’t a set indicator of what each university gets either, George said.
He said there have been debates about creating a formula but it’s never been adopted since the way it’s weighted could lead to bias.
One possible solution George sees lies outside of the realm of higher education — health care.
“If you look at the budget, the pie has stayed about the same size but the university gets less,” he said. “There’s less because money is going to health care — there might be more for higher education if people took better care of themselves.”
Some relief might come in the form of federal stimulus funds.
In order to receive the money, the state wasn’t able to give the universities less than what they received in 2006, according to the state Senate Fiscal Agency.
Kahn said because of the stimulus requirements, there wasn’t much they could trim off the higher education budget.
“There are requirements that are part of the stimulus dollar appropriations and those preclude substantial changes from prior years,” Kahn said. “This year’s budget decisions were conditioned on prior years’ budget considerations more than ever because of finding so few areas so find savings.”
The stimulus funding is supposed to backfill what was cut from higher education, but the money ran out as it has to fund K-12 education, community colleges and universities, according to the state Senate Fiscal Agency.
Dave Byelich, director of MSU’s Office of Planning and Budgets, said the stimulus funding is meant to go toward facilities or to stabilize tuition. He said if MSU receives stimulus money, it would be used to offset the tuition rate change for resident undergraduates in 2009-10.
Stimulus funding only would affect the 2009-10 budget.
“We based the appropriations assumption on our best thought about a recurring basis, because the stimulus is only one time,” Byelich said.
State of higher education
MSU plans on receiving about $283.9 million in state appropriations for 2009-10 — 3.1 percent less than 2008-09 levels at about $293 million, according to MSU’s budget development overview. State appropriations for 2009-10 have not been finalized.
Byelich said the number doesn’t include potential federal stimulus dollars.
“Right now, both the House and the Senate and the governor have suggested a 3 percent reduction and to allocate relatively corresponding stimulus money — that’s what we had premised our budget upon,” he said.
U-M is planning to receive about $316.6 million from the state, also about 3.1 percent less than it received in 2008-09, according to data from U-M.
Western Michigan University is set to receive about $109.6 million, about a 3.1 percent decrease, according to the WMU estimated beginning board budget.
Michigan currently ranks 50th in the country for higher education funding, MSU Trustee Dianne Byrum said.
“This fact has placed an extreme burden on the university to continue to serve our students and make sure that MSU remains a good value for a high quality education,” she said in the e-mail.
Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, said although virtually every area of the state budget has been slashed, higher education seems to have been hit particularly hard.
“It’s the culture of the economy as a whole and there’s only so much money to go around and we tend to be a more vulnerable target,” Boulus said. “The trend over the last five years — (Michigan) is the worst state in the nation in terms of state support for higher education. We’re dead last; there’s a race to the bottom and we’ve won that race.”
Boulus said he doesn’t see the situation getting better any time soon.
“(Universities are) making reductions in the budget and those have been compounding over the last few years — we’re expecting things to get worse so they’re planning two to three years ahead of what they need to,” he said.
George said the reduction in state appropriations to the 15 public universities in Michigan was a function of less revenue coming into the state.
“We have a couple choices — we can raise taxes or we can make cuts and in 2007 we mostly raised taxes to make up the shortfall we faced then,” he said. “But this time with the economy doing worse and having already (raised taxes), in the Senate most of my colleagues are of the mind we really can’t or shouldn’t raise taxes again so that leaves us with cuts.”
Kahn said in comparison to other budgets, higher education received less of a hit.
“The maintenance of effort requirement cuts the higher education budget less than most other budgets,” Kahn said. “There are two other budgets with less cuts to them — education and the other is the Department of Community Health, because it too is associated with federal stimulus dollars.”
Cutting back
In order to deal with less state funding, MSU is working on cutting 20 percent of its operating budget during the next two to three years as well as increasing tuition, Byrum said.
Tuition is set to increase 10.1 percent during the next two years for in-state undergraduate MSU students.
U-M also has increased tuition about 5.6 percent and planned on cutting $36.5 million during the next three years, according to information from U-M.
WMU increased tuition 5.7 percent and is implementing an about $5 million budget reduction, Michael Meister, director of University Budgets at WMU, said.
“It is very challenging,” he said.
“What we are experiencing here is a contraction in state appropriation support that is more significant than anything I have seen in my career at Michigan State.”
Commentary
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Dan Jakeway
(07/20/09 12:39am)Report
If you calculate per pupil state appropriations over the typical four year period, you will discover that msu students receive about $56,000 from the state, and University of michigan students receive about $90,000!!!
We see total appropriations in those charts, but one must remember that Umich has many grad students, and grad school has a different financial structure, and overall they have quite fewer students than msu.
So does anyone want to ask why we don’t spend the same per pupil at msu and Umich? Let’s hear the indefensible answers.
Sparty
(07/20/09 8:54am)Report
Of course we’re 2nd, we’ve got the most people. Since we’ve got the most students you should wonder why we’re not first? Its because, like Dan says, we get a very low amount per student compared to other Michigan schools.
Please do your homework next time instead of just repeating simple numbers. The real story ($ per student) paint an entirely different story.
student
(07/20/09 9:46am)Report
The reason why UofM receives more state funding is because they have more economic impact in the state than MSU. We must remember that the state doesn’t care about education, number of graduates, community service, or anything that actually matters. The state cares about the economic impact that each University has in the state. UofM has more employees than MSU and, therefore, the state rewards them with additional funding because they give more money in wages to the state although UofM has an actual impact only in the Southeastern area of the state. MSU, the University in Michigan, is the only University that actually cares for the production and improvement of the state of Michigan. This is notable with the Ag Extensions and all the services the University provides throughout Michigan (like the new Secchia Center in Grand Rapids or the Business College location in Troy). But eventually, as MSU develops its professional and graduate schools, MSU will become the power in the region with its combination of professional and agricultural studies.
GO GREEN!Q
RE Student
(07/20/09 10:51am)Report
Uh… actually Student, MSU grads tend to be much more Michigan residents than UofM which means that our tax payers are not subsidizing out of state students nearly as much when they fund MSU.
Further, MSU studetns are much more likely to remain in state after graduation than UofM so they have a much more positive impact upon MI.
student
(07/20/09 11:20am)Report
RE Student:
You went straight to my point. My argument is that the state doesn’t fund the University with most benefit for Michigan, but the one with the most current economic impact through employees. UofM has around 7,000 more jobs than MSU and they are non-academic jobs that probably are protected by unions. The state doesn’t care about educational improvements of the people but about economic impact and, since UofM has more employees, they get more money.
grassy knole
(07/20/09 11:41am)Report
“MSU will become the power in the region with its combination of professional and agricultural studies.”
TOO FUNNY! Oh yeah, the future of this state is all about agriculture. Sure. Time to get all those long-dead family farms going again.
What, did you just wake up in the 19th century this morning?
fact checker
(07/20/09 12:43pm)Report
“…but one must remember that Umich has many grad students, and grad school has a different financial structure, and overall they have quite fewer students than msu.”
“Since we’ve got the most students you should wonder why we’re not first?”
MSU enrollment (Fall 2008):
46,648 total:
36,337 undergraduate
10,311 graduate and professional
U-M enrollment (Fall 2008):
Total, all campuses: 56,857
Ann Arbor 41,028
Dearborn 8,569
Flint 7,260
Undergraduate 38,927
Graduate and Professional 17,930
ChicagoSpartan
(07/20/09 12:55pm)Report
MSU has traditionally been “second-in-line” when it comes to funding from the State. This is in spite of the fact that it has traditionally served a less elitist constituency. Further, although a number of years ago MSU committed to holding tuition increases to the rate of inflation to get more support from the legislature, they did not get proportionally more support in spite of trying to make education more affordable. (Such commitment was necessarily abandoned.)
The State is in a quandary. In many regards, their support of higher education is an investment which is not fully realized, especially with the number of students leaving the state due to lack of employment opportunities. This is a “Catch-22” to which I don’t know what the answer is … how will the State recover if its newly educated talent is not there to assist with innovative developments? However, as noted earlier, MSU students stay in the state at a higher proportion than other schools. You would think that MSU would get a bit more credit and support due to their higher “return on investment.”
Grassy knole [sic: knoll?]: before you jump all over the comment regarding agriculture, you should become more informed as to current trends and predictions which indicate that world demographics point to a serious need for agriculture production. While agriculture by itself will not lead Michigan’s recovery, it will be more than a minimal component. In case you aren’t aware, MSU is a leader in both traditional agriculture as well as research in agriculture for alternative energy (that is less onerous than the current corn-based methods).
fact checker
(07/20/09 1:03pm)Report
“UofM has around 7,000 more jobs than MSU and they are non-academic jobs that probably are protected by unions”
And here’s were most of those jobs are:
U-M HEALTH SYSTEM, faculty & staff employee total: 18,298
Hospitals and Health Centers: 12,298
U-M Medical School: 6,380
U-M School of Nursing: 175
State of Michigan funding to U-M Hospitals and Health Centers: $0
RE: grassy knole
(07/20/09 1:04pm)Report
Lets see which industry shot up 12% in a otherwise stagnant economy. Yes, its the ag industry. Almost all farms in michigan are family owned (most corporate farms are made up of family members for tax purposes). The state should support both MSU and the MDA to ensure that the only bright spot for the state remains bright
The stat that matters...
(07/20/09 1:12pm)Report
Again, its the $ per student figure that isnt being discussed. MSU is by far lower than UofM in $ per student in undergrad, not due to more or less grad students.
Its not total UofM campus statewide combined getting more funding, UofM AA gets more funding alone as its per student $$$ is considerably higher than MSU.
grassy knole
(07/20/09 2:11pm)Report
“While agriculture by itself will not lead Michigan’s recovery, it will be more than a minimal component.”
More laughter! More like a zero component, given the scale of the problem.
Actually, ChicagoSpartan, I’m quite well informed about both the history and future trends in agriculture in this country,(and we are talking about this country, not Africa or Asia.) If there is one predominant feature of agricultural in the USA in the 20th century it was and is fewer and fewer people (jobs) producing ever more crops. Overproduction has been a common problem, caused in good part by federal subsidy policies. The upside has been huge export volume of agricultural products by corporate producers…..good for the national economy, not so great for family farms and rural communities.
Michigan has never been that big a player in the corporate agricultural commodity game, not like Iowa, Illinois, Kansas. This isn’t the corn/wheat/soybeans belt. More the home of family dairy farms and regional fruit and vegetable production. Those is just not a real money making/job creating businesses. Even in the unlikely event growing grasses or other crops for alternative energy production becomes a large-scale, viable business, the number of jobs created will be minimal, and there is a high probability such crops could be grown cheaper elsewhere. Any economically rational business model will demand this.
Michigan will lose over 300,000 jobs in the current one year period, most, well-paying manufacturing jobs. For the current decade, the job lose will probably approach one million jobs. Your fantasy about worldwide demographic trends and future agricultural demand isn’t going to help all these hundreds of thousands of former Michigan manufacturing workers now without jobs.
Re: Fact Checker
(07/20/09 2:35pm)Report
Nice fraudulent enrollment figures Fact Inventor. Here are the enrollment figures from Umich’s own website. Grand total all the professional and graduate schools and undergraduate is 41,000!!!
Real numbers for Umich, illustrating how the liberals in Eastern michigan steal from the rest of the state
Re: Fact Checker
(07/20/09 2:37pm)Report
And using three different disparate campuses is a pathetic attempt at confusing the michigan residents reading this who by now realize Umich is stealing from blue collar workers.
Re: Fact checker
(07/20/09 2:44pm)Report
michigan has hidden appropriations to the Um Hospitals through the state and federal funded medicaid program.
Dan Jakeway
(07/20/09 2:53pm)Report
Here’s a better idea: eliminate state appropriations to the universities at large and appropriate directly to families with students going into college. This will force the universities to compete with each other and drive down their bloated budgets, eliminating preferential university appropriation and wealth transfer to the Eastern portion of michigan.
Dan Jakeway
(07/20/09 2:59pm)Report
many would probably fear that faculty would stream out of the state when university budgets are pared. False, tenured faculty will stay, because they have guaranteed employment despite being in the middle of a recession/depression.
Re: Fact checker
(07/20/09 3:04pm)Report
Ok, let’s see your calculations: what’s the 4 year per pupil state appropriation for msu and Umich? We’re all waiting.
MSU Alum '06
(07/20/09 3:10pm)Report
Great article State News! This is on point for a student newspaper and is also a great read for those outside the university community. Great job digging for the financial information and the charts look good. Keep up the good work!
thinking
(07/20/09 3:17pm)Report
I guess you’re in the Western portion of Michigan, Dan Jakeway, or at least advocate for that area? Your idea is pretty much like the school voucher idea for primary and secondary school students. Appropriating funds directly to families, however, seems to me an invitation for fraud, corruption and theft of all kinds.
What about the idea, which gets floated periodically, of paying universities on a per-head basis for real product, i.e., actual graduates? You can set the per-head price to get the kind of product the state really wants and needs, i.e. NOT more elementary school teachers.
Anonymous
(07/20/09 3:21pm)Report
Another reason UM gets more per-pupil funding is because it has more graduate level (read expensive) research going on than MSU. I believe MSU is in the process of increasing its graduate and research capabilities and this “should” change the funding disparity somewhat.
fact checker
(07/20/09 3:24pm)Report
“Ok, let’s see your calculations: what’s the 4 year per pupil state appropriation for msu and Umich? We’re all waiting.”
1. I really don’t do “calculations.” I search and report relevant data for purposes of discussion. You can too.
2. The State does not appropriate funds to universities on a per-student basis. You should know that. Maybe it should.
fact checker
(07/20/09 3:40pm)Report
FOR: Anonymous
SOURCE: The Chronicle Of Higher Education
Top Institutions in Total Research-and-Development Expenditures for Science and Engineering, 2005 Fiscal Year:
Johns Hopkins University $1,443,792,000
University of Michigan $808,887,000
University of Wisconsin at Madison $798,099,000
University of California at Los Angeles $785,625,000
University of California at San Francisco $754,444,000
University of California at San Diego $721,035,000
Stanford University $714,897,000
University of Washington $707,519,000
University of Pennsylvania $654,982,000
Duke University $630,752,000
Pennsylvania State University $625,764,000
Ohio State University $608,923,000
Cornell University $606,804,000
Massachusetts Institute of Technology $580,742,000
University of California at Berkeley $554,551,000
University of Minnesota $548,873,000
University of California at Davis $546,978,000
Columbia University $535,424,000
Washington University in St. Louis $531,846,000
University of Florida $530,734,000
University of Arizona $530,233,000
University of Colorado $517,067,000
University of Pittsburgh $510,943,000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign $499,711,000
Texas A&M University $479,735,000
Baylor College of Medicine $458,694,000
Harvard University $447,196,000
University of Southern California $445,036,000
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $441,033,000
Yale University $431,618,000
Georgia Institute of Technology $425,386,000
University of Texas at Austin $410,981,000
Northwestern University $387,242,000
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center $383,780,000
Purdue University $364,986,000
Louisiana State University $356,828,000
Vanderbilt University $350,433,000
University of Rochester $345,337,000
University of Maryland at College Park $338,648,000
Scripps Research Institute $338,634,000
University of Iowa $334,144,000
Michigan State University $333,735,000
fact checker
(07/20/09 4:14pm)Report
FOR: Anonymous
SOURCE: The Chronicle Of Higher Education
Universities Awarding the Most Earned Doctorates, 2006:
University of Texas at Austin 796
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 754
University of California at Berkeley 747
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 720
University of California at Los Angeles 702
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 690
Pennsylvania State University at University Park 674
Ohio State University main campus 664
University of Wisconsin at Madison 649
Stanford University 644
Harvard University 637
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 602
University of Florida 599
University of Washington 578
University of Maryland at College Park 567
Purdue University main campus 561
University of Southern California 561
Texas A&M University at College Station 548
University of Pennsylvania 495
Columbia University 488
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 478
Cornell University 477
Michigan State University 452
fact checker
(07/20/09 4:41pm)Report
FOR: Anonymous
SOURCE: The Chronicle Of Higher Education
Top Institutions In Alumni Support, 2006-07:
(excludes all gift sources other than alumni)
Stanford University $284,588,291
Cornell University $210,121,965
Yale University $192,421,017
Harvard University $188,156,000
University of Michigan $149,230,162
Princeton University $138,164,478
Columbia University $136,138,753
University of Pennsylvania $115,283,135
University of Notre Dame $111,905,227
University of Chicago $101,873,548
Massachusetts Institute of Technology $96,439,226
University of California at Berkeley $83,893,361
University of Virginia $79,236,099
University of California at Los Angeles $78,668,367
Dartmouth College $74,730,771
University of Wisconsin at Madison $73,042,720
Texas A&M University $71,838,212
Duke University $67,782,011
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $67,406,588
Texas Tech University $64,942,859