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Printer-Friendly ModeStudents protest for higher-ed funds
February 8, 2010 —
The Michigan Promise Scholarship still has a pulse, but it will take creative solutions to revive a $4,000 pledge for nearly 100,000 students statewide.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced Wednesday her intention to include the scholarship in her budget for the year ahead. Preventing additional education cuts is also a must, she said in her final State of the State address.
Hundreds of college students heard the news live as they joined in protest at the Capitol in Lansing.
“It was nice to see a protest happening because it’s a right of ours,” political science senior Nick Wilcox said.
Wilcox had interned in Lansing during the day and stayed for the governor’s address.
“I thought it was strong and it was at least a good message and a good start,” he said. “I have high hopes for the upcoming session. ... The need to keep young skilled and educated people in Michigan is pretty blatant right now.”
Student protest organization efforts included those of of Ben Lazarus, a Central Michigan University political science sophomore.
Lazarus is the founder of NoBrokenPromise.com — a site that went up in September when the fate of the scholarship was first in question.
“There are a lot of things in the budget that could be cut,” Lazarus said, “and we just want to make sure they put students first.”
Lazarus awaits Granholm’s Feb. 11 presentation of her final budget recommendations.
“Whether or not they fund the Promise Scholarship next year,” he said, “I think it’s important that they satisfy those who were left out this year. You can’t skip a whole year and pretend students weren’t drastically affected.”
SVSU picked up the reneged scholarship tab for only the fall semester, when students’ financial aid award letters had preceded the broken promise.
Back in Cardinal Country, the Student Association is helping prepare a solution to Promise woes that doesn’t fit on a picket sign.
SA is working with student governments across the state on developing a declaration to present in Lansing in March.
“We want to present the legislators with a plan to really prove the importance of education,” said parliamentarian Julie Boon.
“[The declaration] will show them how students feel, what the facts are and what we’re going to do about it.”
To avoid treading on partisan territory, SA did not organize a trip for SVSU students to Wednesday’s protest.
“This protest just focused on the Michigan Promise, but we want to focus on higher education as a whole and show how important it is to the future of Michigan,” Boon said.
The March 25 rally for higher education has the support of 13 universities, including Central, Easter, Western and Northern Michigan.
The universities meet throughout the year at Student Association of Michigan conferences. The declaration is circulating electronically between student leaders who are contributing to the document.
This unified front, Boon says, has the greatest chance to be effective.
The silver lining in a set of unfortunate circumstances, she added, is that cutting the Michigan Promise scholarship brought attention to serious problems with government support of higher education.
“Right now, no one [in government] is taking initiative,” Boon said. “They’re getting paid for indecision.”
Those who don’t wish to wait idly until March can influence Lansing via the written word, Wilcox said, speaking from his experience inside a representative’s office.
“E-mails and letters,” he said. “Not form letters, but personally written letters to individual legislators. That’s the most effective way of actually reaching them and letting them know how many people in the area are actually concerned.”