Fighting for an unkept Promise
Left to right, hospitality business freshman Mark Renshaw, zoology and philosophy junior Lila Wakeman, american studies doctoral student Darren Brown and american studies doctoral student Fumiko Sakashita stand with their backs to MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, bottom center, Wednesday morning at the Administration Building. Wakeman, who received the scholarship, and others also turned their backs to Gov. Jennifer Granholm when she spoke.
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Sam Inglot might spend a little less time relaxing this summer. Inglot, a journalism sophomore, said he’ll look for a second job to patch a hole the Michigan Promise Scholarship used to fill on his MSU tuition bill. “I am not really sure where I am going to get that money this spring,” he said. “But another job, that’s a definite this summer, as well as summer classes at a community college. I can’t keep paying more at MSU when I can just take cheaper classes.”
Inglot is one of 8,200 MSU students who qualified to receive the Michigan Promise Scholarship, which was slashed — along with 61 percent of additional financial aid funding — to erase Michigan’s $2.8 billion deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Inglot and about 150 other MSU students gathered Wednesday at the Administration Building where Gov. Jennifer Granholm, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, representatives from ASMSU and the MSU Council of Graduate Students addressed students about the state of higher education funding.
Granholm encouraged students to contact state legislators and express their concerns about state budget cuts to higher education, specifically the elimination of the Michigan Promise Scholarship.
“I’m here to stand in solidarity with you, to ask the (Michigan Senate) to restore the Michigan Promise,” Granholm said. “It is very clear that we have got to fund this promise, so I am asking you to stand tall and to make your voices heard.”
Photo: Gov. Jennifer Granholm ...
Video: Bring it Back
Statewide, the scholarship was to provide up to $4,000 to 96,000 eligible college students. Earlier this month, MSU officials developed a plan to use $7.9 million in federal stimulus dollars to aid the more than 8,000 MSU students affected by the loss of the scholarship with one-time, $500 grants this fall, said Rick Shipman, director of the MSU Office of Financial Aid.
In the spring, part of the stimulus funds will be used to ensure about 2,000 high-need students of the 8,200 previously eligible will have the full $1,000 in Promise Scholarship funding they expected for the year, Shipman said.
“We are using the tools available to us to try to find support for the next generation, which includes basic funding as well as the Promise Scholarship,” Simon said. “We think that this has to be a priority and how they find the money is really (the Legislature’s) job.”
Granholm will visit five other college campuses in the next week to encourage lawmakers to reinstate the scholarship. But experts said until a revenue source is identified and agreed upon, the Michigan Promise Scholarship will not be reinstated.
“There are a lot of demands on the Legislature to spend money, and they just don’t have any money,” said Craig Ruff, senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants, a policy research group in Lansing.
A freeze on the earned income tax exemption that was passed in the state House to raise revenues should be used to fund the scholarship, Granholm said. The earned income tax freeze would create up to $160 million in new revenue and the Michigan Promise Scholarship costs about $100 million, Granholm said.
But Matt Marsden, spokesman for the Senate Republicans, said Granholm’s action does nothing to change the budget situation.
“There is no state funding available for things like the Promise grant,” Marsden said. “Feel free to contact your senator, but understand that in doing so that you might not like the answer.”
Marsden said legislators need to look at major structural changes before a scholarship like this is reinstated.
And until the Legislature can agree on reforms, programs will continue to be cut, said Bernie Porn, president of Lansing-based political research firm EPIC-MRA polling.
“Programs will continue to decline unless we have some restructuring of the tax system,” he said.
The Michigan Promise Scholarship, originally the Michigan Merit Award, began as a way to reward high school students for taking Michigan standardized tests, said David Waymire, a spokesman of the Presidents Council State Universities of Michigan.
“The incentive might be better used if it were focused on those who have higher need who might not otherwise go to college,” Waymire said.
Granholm said she hopes the Legislature will reconsider the scholarship after returning from a two-week break after Thanksgiving.
“Everybody says the budget is done,” Granholm said. “It’s not done until everybody agrees it’s done. And I say it’s not done.”
In the spring, MSU plans to use about $1.9 million of its federal stimulus dollars to provide a $5 per credit hour refund for all resident undergraduate students. If lawmakers refund the Michigan Promise Scholarship, the university would offset tuition costs by an additional $15 per credit hour, said Dave Byelich, the director of MSU’s Office of Planning and Budgets.
Inglot said he could deal with the stress of working extra hours this summer, but his real concern lies in the state’s priorities.
“Not much stresses me out,” he said. “But it’s quite clear that the Legislature doesn’t really have education as (a) top priority. I plan on staying in Michigan, but when I get something that is supposed to be guaranteed money that I earned and then they take it from me, it’s a slap in the face.”
Commentary
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lewis
(11/19/09 8:17am)Report
First point: $4K over 4 years is not going to make or break someone attending college, let’s be honest.
Second point: To the toolish student’s featured in this article: Your education is already highly subsidized by state tax payers.
Third point: The state budget might be slashed 20% next year. Michigan has lost thousands and thousands of jobs which will never come back. The state will never have the tax base it had 10 years ago. The state budget must shrink accordingly. Programs and spending must be cut, its the new normal. Deal with it.
Need a tissue?
(11/19/09 8:31am)Report
i want money, i want money. If you want to go to college, pay for it yourself. Not continually whine over something. If your family cannot afford, perhaps your family should have worked harder to be able to.
Anon
(11/19/09 9:10am)Report
$1000 for a year is nothing. Be glad you’re not an OOS student.
Work 4 hours a week for the academic year and you’re caught up with that 1k.
The Truth
(11/19/09 9:29am)Report
Tough luck, welcome to the real world. I didn’t get the money either, but I’m not going to piss and moan about it. The State of Michigan has an unemployment level of 15%. How the heck is the state going to come up with the money if nobody is working?
Sliver Spoon
(11/19/09 9:30am)Report
@ Tissue
Not everyone has everything handed to them by their parents.
1. My parents never went to college, both make under 30k a year.
2. out of my 9 eligible cousins my bother and I are the only ones at college (the rest dropped out)
3. Between my brother and I, my parents are doing their best to help us out.
4. $2300 a year is something to complain about (Michigan Competitive was also cut)
@ Anon:
i work 12-15hours a week, and OOS students scholarships cover more of the cost.
so get off your pedestals.
Real World
(11/19/09 9:33am)Report
Sam Inglot, I’ve had to work through high school and college. I work year around, get off your lazy @ss and contribute something to society.
TO GOV. IDIOT & FOOLS
(11/19/09 9:36am)Report
What IDIOT forgets —
For 20 years, college costs have increased at twice general inflation.
Whose problem is that? Gov. Idiot & her COMMIE-crat pals.
Not paying for incompetence, Gov. Idiot.
Common Sense
(11/19/09 9:38am)Report
“The state budget might be slashed 20% next year. Michigan has lost thousands and thousands of jobs which will never come back. The state will never have the tax base it had 10 years ago.”
In part, because of the failed leadership in Lansing. The same people now responsible for destroying the scholarship.
Look, no one is upset about it being cut. It obviously had to go, because there is no way to pay for it. What people are upset about, is the fact that students who were ALREADY AWARDED the PROMISE SCHOLARSHIP, are now being told to bad we blew it and didn’t really have enough money to help you out.
You’d be pissed too if something was promised by the state government and then yanked out, cause the idiots in Lansing can’t figure out Michigan’s sub par economy.
UAW
(11/19/09 9:43am)Report
I’m sorry for f-ucking up the State of Michigan. No employers want to come here because they don’t want to deal with lazy, overpaid, SOBs.
Anon
(11/19/09 9:44am)Report
@Silver Spoon
OOS scholarships cover MORE of the cost. I know plenty of OOS who still had to take loans of 60-80k to pay for tution despite scholarships while I only had to take 15k.
1k (2.3k) too much to work off? Take out (more) loans like the rest of us.
When the cost of tution goes up another 5% because of these promise scholarships breaking the education budget the same people fighting for these scholarships will be complaining about tution outpacing inflation.
Mike
(11/19/09 9:56am)Report
Do people really think Jennifer Granholm single handedly terminated the Michigan Promise scholarship? As much as I dislike her, direct your bitching and moaning to the legislature. In all honesty, I’m not disappointed that this was cut. What happened to paying for the things we consume?
That idiot they mentioned in the article said he was going to take classes at a community college because MSU tuition is too expensive. Why didn’t you do that from the start? You knew what you were getting yourself into. The $1000/year isn’t going to make or break
someone’s decision to attend college. Ultimately, this is what caused our nation’s economic problem – people wanting
something for nothing.
your parents should have went to college
(11/19/09 10:07am)Report
Then your parents should have went to college and made their lives better. The state should not be responsible to over your cost, or your parents failure.
the above comment is hilarious
(11/19/09 10:46am)Report
I bet everyone wishes they were handed success in a neat little package like you weren’t they? Blaming a student for their parents situation is pretty much the definition of ignorant conservativism. Poverty is inherited as easily as wealth. To everyone ripping on the dude for wanting help, take a sociology class, ANY sociology class, here at MSU. I recommend reading “How the Rich get Richer” in one of Prof. Broman’s classes, but you guys may get quite enraged because it shows the God-Idol Ronald Reagan as insensitive and short sighted along with all of the other great conservative heroes.
diversity advocate
(11/19/09 11:14am)Report
Not to worry, all you impoverished, aspiring MSU undergrad scholars! All MSU has to do to stay afloat (so you can get your B.S. degrees part-time over the next decade or two) is to keep admitting the newly wealthy from China and India: you know, all those different looking kids with the umbrellas and funny haircuts driving up and down Grand River in their shiny new BMWs and Benzes.
Unlike the poor working-class MI slovenly slobs in this article begging for paltry $1000 PROMISE grants, these nouveau-riche sons and daughters of Asian oligarchs pay full tuition outright! Who would you rather have paying MSU’s bills, grubby and needy MI natives or wealthy Asian businessman who manufacture that cheap junk you buy at Wal-Mart?
“Mainstream” MI undergrads, prepare (very soon) to meet true displacement. It is your turn to taste the consequences of 20 years of failed American policy (invade the world/invite the world/in hock to the world). “Mainstream” MI undergrad: you are not wanted or needed. Isn’t the New Global Economy wonderful?
Nice Try
(11/19/09 11:24am)Report
“It is your turn to taste the consequences of 20 years of failed American policy”
Not failed American policy. Failed Michigan policy. The rest of the union is doing just fine, while Michigan continues to regress.
Domi
(11/19/09 11:30am)Report
I’m really (and negatively) impressed by what you people are saying.
Your point of view doesn’t consider at all that education is fundamental for the whole society.
If you believe that you get a college degree to get a good job and make a lot of money for yourself and for you children education,then you’re seeing the whole thing from an individualistic point of view.
While, you may spend sometime thinking that the knowledge you are given from educational institutions, are going to be useful to SERVE your community, your state, your nation.Then you should be more careful saying that the state and tax payers should not pay for scholarship and aids.
All the patriotism that I see all around me is very contradictory with this non-social perspective on educational and health system issues.
btw, if your parents pay for your tuitions, and they’ve worked hard to do that in their lives, well, I admire them. But you, as their children, do not take any credit for that. You, personally, you only have been lucky for being born in such a family.
not a right
(11/19/09 11:39am)Report
Education is not a right. It is a privilege. The sole responsibility falls upon the individual.
crowder
(11/19/09 11:49am)Report
I am proud of the students for their initiative and for speaking up. If you don’t stand up for yourself and your community, who will?
MotorCity007
(11/19/09 12:07pm)Report
The State of Michigan doesn’t have enough money to pay for public school teachers let alone free handouts. If anyone thought the recession was over you’ll be in for a big surprise when the dollar starts inflating at uncontrollable rates.
sociology is for people to stupid to pass econ
(11/19/09 12:08pm)Report
@ the above comment is hilarious
Why not take an economics class? Any economics class.
Domi
(11/19/09 12:11pm)Report
@not-a-right
Yeah, I guess that’s the point.
I believe education IS a right, and you don’t.
I just want to remind you that we live in something called SOCIETY.
We are not a bunch of individuals doing just their own things.
what is society
(11/19/09 12:15pm)Report
A GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS
Not a right
(11/19/09 12:17pm)Report
If everybody got to go to college you would have to get a college degree to work at McDonalds, which is not far from the truth today. It is a waste to fund the lowly. The money could be better spent on law students or medical students, who are actually going to help benefit the country through their services.
nothing in life is free
(11/19/09 12:42pm)Report
I’m sorry, but you can’t get something for nothing. Either increase taxes to pay for these things or shut up about services (including the Promise Scholarship) being cut.
Ohhhh pipe it
(11/19/09 12:59pm)Report
Ok. to the “need a tissue” idiot. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Do you know how hard it is to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps?” Most kids who have parents who work lower class jobs without a college eduation follow in the SAME footsteps as their parents because they have no one guiding them to get a higher eduation.
we are in debt! Have you been living under a rock? And I even know a person who has been denyed. But hey, sure I guess according to you anyone can get them.
And to the idiot who says that people can just get loans: I know at least 4 college students who have had a heck of a time trying to get loans to even finish their schooling, so don’t you even TRY to say that we can just “get loans”. They are harder and harder to come along beacuse HELLO?!?
Climb out of those holes you’re living in and pick up a newspaper or watch the news. College is expensive and not everyone is lucky enough to attend.