LANSING — A near $77 million dollar increase is in the works for Michigan's higher education institutions and soon will head to the House Appropriations Committee for further approval.
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education approved the increase to higher education funding in the 2015 fiscal year at its meeting Wednesday morning.
Subcommittee Chair Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, introduced House Bill 5312 in February, but said this has been something he and others have worked on for a while. Pscholka noted this will be the third straight increase to higher education.
Pscholka noted this will be the third straight increase to higher education.
"At the end of last year a number of us ... have had lots of discussions on how we could do better," Pscholka said."How we could end what is really a decade of dis-investment in higher education."
Gov. Rick Snyder recommended a 6.1 percent increase to higher education funding in early February, but only under the condition that universities will have to limit tuition increases to 3.2 percent or less in order to receive the additional money referred to as performance funding.
The proposed funding increase would still leave Michigan universities with far less funding thank before Snyder took office in 2011, when he cut education spending by 15 percent, or about $150 million.
If the proposed increase makes it through legislature, MSU could stand to gain about $14 million.
However, in recent years, the funding allotted in the final budget has been less than what the House initially proposed.
Pscholka said his resolve to increase funding was strengthened when he made a trip to Benton Harbor on Monday and spoke with a group of young high school dropouts.
"The only thing that 90 percent of them wanted to do was go to college," he said. "They wanted to take the next step. So it's important we make it affordable and accessible not only to the kids in Benton Harbor, but to the kids across the state."
State Rep. Sean McCann, D-Kalamazoo, said he believed the increase was important and the committee should "be doing more than even the executive recommendation to restore some of the drastic cutting that was started a couple years ago."
Minority Vice-Chair Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, said he was happy to see the bill go through and to see some funding restored to higher education after years of cuts.
"I think it's good news for Michigan State University and the students that go there," he said.
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