Promise Grants, which provide up to $4,000 over four years for 96,000 Michigan College students, have been eliminated in the higher education budget approved in conference committee this afternoon.The budget also eliminates $60 million from financial aid, including Michigan Competitive Scholarships, the work-study program and grants for nurses, graduate students, private college students and others.
Meanwhile, a separate panel restored 55 laid off-state police troopers and said funding may be there to bring back 18 to 25 more. And the committee directed the state to buy the controversial state police headquarters building rather than rent it. Also, the committee hammering out the community health budget is discussing taxing doctors to pay for growing Medicaid costs. Top lawmakers also expressed confidence that the budgets for 15 state departments will be hammered out and approved today.
The higher education conference committee chair, Rep. Joan Bauer, D-Lansing, in an unusual move voted against approving the conference report. Sen. Jim Barcia, D-Bay City, also opposed the plan, but it passed 4-2 and goes to the Legislature.
"We made a promise to students," Bauer said. "If we don't fund this in any way, those students who planned on this will not have the money and will have to come up with the money to pay that back."
George Cushingberry Jr., D-Detroit, said he voted in favor of the plan, saying it's time for lawmakers to "pay the piper."
"I need to cut 1.8 billion (out of the budget), and I need to do it now," Cushingberry said. "You can't have your cake and eat it, too. At some point, we have to come to some conclusion that you have to pay as you go."
Cushingberry said lawmakers will look to come up with a funding source for some form of scholarship to replace the Promise grant, but it may be need-based.
State Budget Director Robert Emerson said: "Clearly, the Promise Grant is one of the governor's highest priorities. We're extremely concerned they felt the lowest priority in the higher education budget was the students."
He said since the Promise Grant is not funded at all in the budget, Gov. Jennifer Granholm can't use a line-item veto to restore it.
Operating budgets for the state's 15 universities will be cut by 0.4 percent under this plan. Without an infusion of $67 million in federal stimulus money, the cut would have been steeper. The total cut to universities is $147 million.
Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents' Council of State Universities of Michigan, said the Promise Grant is now not a promise at all. He added that cuts in financial aid in this budget move Michigan from the top one-third in financial aid per student to the bottom one-third.
The full House passed its first funding bill this afternoon, voting to approve $299.4 million for community colleges. Negotiators had agreed to fund the colleges, considered to play a key role in training state workers for high-demand jobs, at the same level as this year.