They tell us we are the future. They talk about the unlimited potential of our generation. They remind us that if we work hard, the boundaries of what we can accomplish are almost limitless.   

Then, they cut our funding. ?For years, state governments have placed a dagger in the dreams of many young people by continually making higher education a low priority, forcing universities to raise tuition. Michigan ranks near the bottom in this category compared to other states, coming in a stellar 48th place in funding growth for higher education during the past 10 years.   ?Gov. Jennifer Granholm, in her State of the State address, proposed a tuition freeze to help students and their families weather the economic storm we currently face. Michigan leads the nation in unemployment, coming in at 10.2 percent. Home foreclosures are continuing at an alarming rate. People are leaving the state to find work and to establish residency for their children, often finding the situation in other states appreciably better than what we have here in Michigan. The average in-state undergraduate tuition in Michigan at a four-year public university for the fall semester in 2008 was $9,079, up 44 percent since 2004, while the average nationally for the same semester was $6,585, up 28 percent since 2004.?As student loans continue to mount, most students would welcome a freeze in tuition next year. The big question, however, is what happens the following year? If the state does not act to address structural problems that universities are facing, tuition simply will rise the following year in a way that would likely make up for next year’s proposed freeze.   ?We’ve seen how ugly unfunded mandates can be. The No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan catastrophic lapse of judgment, imposed new accountability regulations for schools nationwide without giving them the support necessary to meet the new standards. The state, led by the governor, needs to make a strong pledge to offer more resources to help universities cover the losses of a proposed tuition freeze. ?MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon referred to this in her State of the University address by saying, “We know that education and technology and science are the key to the future … but no one seems to want to support it and support it in a sustained way so that we can really accomplish the goals we need to accomplish.”