Cortni Moore
April 26, 2011
Due to proposed budget cuts, Michigan citizens search for solutions.
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East Lansing – Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, has proposed a new 2011 budget that will reduce funding by millions of dollars for many K-12 schools, universities, public safety services, businesses, tax breaks and local governments. Many college students who rely on the government for financial assistance are left with rising tuition rates and few remaining options for funds and education.
“Everyone will have to sacrifice to fix massive fiscal problems that have built up over decades under Republican and Democratic administrations,” said Gov. Snyder in an interview Feb. 17 with Michigan Radio. The proposed budget stated about $202 million dollars will be cut for the funding of Pell grants, ultimately affecting about 337,000 students.
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“With the federal government being in a budget crisis and cutting so much money it puts more pressure on the state to fund higher education,” said Marvin Yates Jr., 23, legislative assistant to State Representative Maureen L. Stapleton and graduate of Michigan State University. “Not being able to receive financial aid and things like that are making higher education unaffordable for so many people,” he said.
Many students at MSU seem to know of Gov. Snyder’s proposed budget, but are not really sure of the details and what it means for them. MSU Psychology sophomore, Shauntelle Boyer, 20, said she heard about the 2011 proposal, but didn’t really know what it meant. “I’m worried about it because without my Pell grants I’ll have to take out more loans,” she said.
“Everyone keeps saying it’s a 15 percent cut to education but it’s more like 22 or 23 percent,” Yates Jr. said. “The fact that education is being cut 22 percent and K-12 education being cut $470 per person average is outlandish and crazy.”
Financing education has become a top concern for many college students like freshmen and those students who are finishing out their last year or two. For many students Pell grants contribute a larger amount of money than other grants on their financial aid. “I would have left a long time ago if they would have cut my Pell grants, that’s like the most important part of financial aid,” said MSU graduate, Janiero Hunter, 24.
Students are agreeing that the decrease in financial assistance will affect future enrollment rates at MSU as well as other Michigan universities. Many lower class students and minorities that contribute to campus diversity receive grants from the state to attend school. Losing these benefits could create a decrease in campus diversity. “I think that majority of the people that actually need financial aid are the lower class and minorities, so in the future there won’t be as many attending,” Hunter said.
If students are denied essential funding what options will they have left? “They’ll probably go to community college because folks don’t want to be in debt coming to college and leaving college. I think he’s (Snyder) trying to weed out the middleman. At the end rich people are going to be the only ones left in college because now the middle class is struggling just as much as the poor,” Boyer said.
Approximately 4,500 citizens, many of them Union members, rallied and protested the proposed budget on April 13. Citizens are left to predict the future of the economy and what these cuts will do to education. “So the object and I think the goal is for the state to be innovative and find ways to really be creative and increase revenue and increase the money that we bring in as a state,” Yates Jr. said. He also said a possible dollar tax on cigarettes would generate an estimated $500 million and then proposed, “instead of making a 22 percent cut to education can you combat that with maybe a 10 percent cut to education and a 12 percent cut to correctional, because right there might balance it out.”
Many people are questioning whether or not attending universities is worth taking out loans and risking debt they may not be able to pay off in the long run. “Your not going to be able to get a job it’s going to be so much harder to be successful without a degree. I think it is worth it to take out loans or do whatever you have to in order to be able to make it or graduate. I don’t think any systematic push or any systematic barrier should stop a person from doing what they want to do,” Yates Jr. said.
“The main reason many people go to four-year institutions is for the experience. Two-year schools are cheaper and there are some really good community colleges,” Hunter said. The only reason people attend MSU is because the degree looks better and better education, said Boyer. “But, if you’re trying to go the cheap route you should go to community college for two years then transfer,” which she said would lessen the debt opposed to staying all four years at a university.
The 2011 budget that Governor Snyder has proposed is not yet official. Some people are still in hopes that the budget will not pass through in its entirety. Yates predicts the chances of the proposed budget coming into affect, “I’m 99.9 percent sure that the budget that Gov. Snyder has proposed will not pass all the way through. There’s going to be a number of changes so I’m not saying that the budget their going to pass is going to be the greatest budget ever. It’s going to be terrible but I don’t think it’s going to be anywhere near as bad as his proposed budget.”
Marvin Yates Interview about Budgets from Cortni Moore on Vimeo.
To find the statistics chart that the GIS map is based on please visit :
http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy-priorities/budget-watch/budget-cuts.html
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