Michelle Martin has worked at least 20 hours a week to cover the cost of tuition and living expenses since she transferred to MSU two years ago.

The university’s tuition guarantee has helped the history junior afford her education by keeping the rate of yearly tuition increases down to an average of 2.8 percent a year for the past six years.

But university and state officials say the guarantee, instituted at MSU in 1994, may be in jeopardy.

For the first time since 1993, Gov. John Engler is recommending no funding increase for Michigan’s 15 public universities - a proposal that could make paying the bills even harder for incoming freshmen and transfer students like Martin.

“I’m putting myself through school,” Martin said. “I don’t have that kind of money. It’s kind of hard to blame anybody, but the state has to realize you can’t make things better by cutting education funding.

“My Discover card is smoking,” she said, shopping for textbooks needed for her summer classes. “I’m going to have to take out another loan.”

State Sen. John Schwarz, higher education subcommittee chairman, said he doubts the Senate will accept Engler’s suggestion, although he said tuition increases - even at 10 percent or higher - shouldn’t come as a surprise to people.

“We’re doing everything we can so that that doesn’t happen,” the Battle Creek Republican said. “We can only do that if we find more money in the budget. It hasn’t been found or agreed upon as of yet.”

The state House has recommended a 7 percent funding increase for MSU, roughly $22 million. The Senate’s Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee will make its recommendation Tuesday. University officials hope the cost of tuition will be set in July.

The university’s tuition guarantee has promised students tuition costs won’t rise above the projected rate of inflation, provided the state Legislature allocates at least that much funding support for the university.

Last year, the guarantee was altered to say tuition would only remain consistent with the rate of inflation if legislators worked to reduce the funding gap between MSU and the state’s other two research universities, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. University officials approved a 3.5 percent tuition increase in 2000.

MSU President M. Peter McPherson, who created the guarantee, said he isn’t making any projections about how much tuition will increase, although he hopes the guarantee will survive the budget process.

“Because it’s going to be a difficult year, it’s going to be hard to constrain the tuition increases as we have done in the past,” he said. “It is widely thought now that the state appropriation will be down.”

MSU Trustee Dee Cook said the board will continue discussing the issue, but circumstances do not look good for the survival of the guarantee.

“A 1.5 percent increase is not even good for us,” she said. “I don’t think the news is going to be good no matter who decides the budget this year. We’re just holding our breath.”

Board members have continued to support the guarantee, although it has cost MSU $28 million in revenue when compared to the tuition increases of other Big Ten universities.

The board approved an increase of room and board fees by 4.6 percent last month, putting the starting cost for on-campus residence life at $4,678 a year.

“We’ve been extremely successful with helping families pay for college,” Cook said. “We’re faced with a dilemma. How do we do that when we have no money?”