MSU Trustee Melanie Foster does not have any intention of raising tuition despite the potential cuts to MSU’s funding.

“We don’t intend to increase it again unless our promised funding doesn’t come through,” she said.

The Board of Trustees decided in June to increase tuition for the 2009-10 school year by 5.2 percent. That increase was made taking Granholm’s February budget recommendations into account, Foster said.

Although funding for higher education could be cut, Granholm’s spokeswoman Liz Boyd said there were no plans to reduce funding for the Michigan Promise Scholarship. Boyd said the governor’s cut was not intended to be a dangerous cut that could harm economic growth.

The Michigan Constitution requires the governor to propose an executive budget on an annual basis. The budget needs to be submitted to the Legislature within 30 days of its regular session on the second Wednesday of January. Once it goes through department requests, revisions and revenue estimating conferences, the budget must be submitted before Oct. 1, when the fiscal year starts.

With the cuts to higher education, state Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said he hopes MSU’s administration will not increase tuition.

“I would hope that they would do everything possible not to raise tuition,” he said.

State Rep. Steven Lindberg, D-Marquette, said state officials might make difficult cuts to balance the budget.

“We’re going to be forced … to make cuts to not just to education, but all kinds of things,” he said. “And I’m always concerned when we price education out of the reach of the middle and lower income classes.”

Although cuts are needed, state Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, said deep education cuts might not be the answer.

“We have to provide for education,” she said. “It’s in the constitution.”

Granholm’s February recommendations appropriated $284 million to MSU for operations, and the latest budget plan does not specify how much further MSU operations might be cut.

The February plan also cut funding for the Cooperative Extension service and Agricultural Experiment Station in half. The two programs combined would receive $32 million under the February recommendations.

With Michigan’s higher education funding still reeling from the cuts announced in February, legislators are concerned.

“Higher education is the future of the state,” said Sen. Ray Basham, D-Taylor. “We want to make sure that folks are educated and I think we need to keep our word.”