The Michigan Senate needs to keep its Promise, bring back the scholarship
The state of Michigan needs to keep its Promise.
The bill is sitting in Lansing and waiting on the votes for approval to add $120 billion to the state budget in order to restore the Michigan Promise scholarship.
This is a no brainer-decision. Stifling the bill any longer will only hurt Michigan and its young population.
The Michigan Promise is a $4,000 scholarship for students to attend colleges in Michigan. The scholarship is awarded to those who pass the Michigan Merit Exam, Michigan’s standardized test. All students in Michigan are required to take the test. The test and the scholarship were created to make sure students were meeting educational standards and to encourage postsecondary education.
The Michigan state budget is a mess, and cutting the Michigan Promise was the quick solution. But politicians need to be aware of the long-term effects of such a drastic decision.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan’s unemployment rate has hit 15.6 percent as of July. The days of Detroit being a major manufacturing powerhouse are over, with skill labor jobs disappearing all over the state.
Now more than ever, Michigan needs to educate young minds. If Michigan is to survive and recreate the strong economy it once had, innovative thinking and lots of imagination will be needed to create new jobs. The foundation for a more promising future starts with educating students today.
It may not be fiscally possible to bring the scholarship back in full. The $4,000 scholarship may have to be reduced to $2,500 as it was a few years ago. But reducing the scholarship makes far more sense than simply getting rid of it. In such a tight economy, students will take every dollar they earn and use it toward higher education.
Most of the opposition for reinstating the scholarship persists from lack of funding.
“It’s like having your checkbook all gone and writing something you don’t have — there is no loose $120 million around,” said State Rep. Bill Caul, R-Mount Pleasant, when asked about the proposal.
But the Michigan Senate has to think beyond the present when budgeting. If the money isn’t present for the scholarship, it needs to find a way to make it present. If cutbacks in other areas of the budget have to be made in order to bring back the scholarship, so be it.
Perhaps the full $120 million won’t be needed, especially if the scholarship is reduced from $4,000 to $2,500.
There are a lot of problems Michigan is facing right now, and education is a key factor in finding the solution to these problems.
Don’t hinder higher education.
Help students who will build a brighter future and bring back the Michigan Promise.
