Now that our bill statements for spring semester have come in, I wanted to remind my fellow students about the fact that our tuition went up again this fall. That’s because Gov. Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature voted to cut more than $200 million from higher education in May to pay for a $1.8 billion tax giveaway to big corporations.
Of course, this is nothing new in Lansing. State politicians have been passing the budget on the backs of college students for years with in-state tuition rates doubling during the past decade. For all the talk about our “tough nerd” of a governor valuing higher education, it’s clear he has the wrong priorities for Michigan’s college students. We need jobs, not more tax breaks for greedy corporate CEOs. It’s time to start investing in higher education so students like us can compete for quality jobs when we graduate.