Michigan spends a lot of money on colleges, $1.8 billion to be exact. However, that is not nearly enough to off-set the striking increase in costs over the last decade. It also is less than other states (with smaller populations) spend. (Click Here to Read Story) North Carolina spends $3.5 billion, Georgia spends $2.3 billion, and New Jersey spends $2.1 billion.
I also was reading in a separate article yesterday, that college tuition in Michigan has increased over 80% from 2002 to today. The inflation rate over that same time frame is 15%. So clearly, the costs of attending college in Michigan has skyrocketed, effectively pricing a lot of students out of going to college. While the price has gone up, financial aid is now 1/3 the level of what it was when Governor Granholm first began.
As a result, Michigan now has the 4th highest public university tuition rate in the country, and ranks 49th out of 50 states in total support for higher education. All of this leads to the question: how is our workforce going to be transformed if no one can afford to attend college?
No comments:
Post a Comment