LANSING – In the final joint meeting between the Michigan House and Senate Appropriations Higher Education subcommittees, university officials urged adoption of Governor Rick Snyder‘s proposed increase for the institutions but said more was needed both to bring the universities back to where they were before the cuts and to bring the state in line with the rest of the nation.

While the budget overall would bring university spending back to the 2010-11 levels before Snyder cut 15 percent as part of his efforts to balance the budget, only 10 of the institutions would see their individual funding come back to that level.

Cynthia Wilbanks with the University of Michigan said the increases the past five fiscal years showed a momentum in state funding. “We see that momentum as helping to restore the investment in higher education,” she said.

But Wilbanks noted that her institution was among those still below its 2010-11 appropriation.

Michael Gealt with Central Michigan University said it sees among the lowest per-pupil appropriation at $3,600.

“We urge you to change that formula so it treats all students the same,” he said, adding the university has kept its spending 28 percent below what it would have been allowed had it increased tuition to the state cap every year.

Daniel Hurley, executive director of the Michigan Association of State Universities, said the key for all of the institutions was sustained and consistent funding.

But the state of Michigan was substantially behind the rest of the nation in supporting universities. While it is down 2.4 percent over the last five fiscal years, the nation on average increased funding by 11.6 percent, he said.

He said nationally, 52 percent of public university comes from state funds. In Michigan, that is only 23 percent.

He acknowledges that universities had been increasing tuition, sometimes substantially, in recent years. “When you go back 15 years, 80 percent of that tuition increase can be attributed to the decline in state aid,” he said.

Rep. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) questioned whether the state should consider reforms in how it funds universities, but Hurley said few states have any dedicated revenues for higher education.

“In other states, when they’re at a crossroads on the issue, it really has come down to gubernatorial and legislative leadership,” he said. “They found the money somehow.”

Tim Sowton with Business Leaders for Michigan said his group supports bringing all the universities back to their 2010-11 appropriations but that any funding beyond that should be through the performance incentives rather than across the board.

Still, he said funding for the institutions should increase. “We must continue to invest in our public universities to drive talent and innovation,” he said.

Gealt, Wilbanks and Michigan Technological University President Glenn Mroz all pressed the value of their institutions to the state’s economy.

“We started one new company every day,” Wilbanks said of statistics from last year.

She also pointed to the new M-City automated vehicle testing area making the state a leader in the research.

“Universities are the ones doing discovery-style research,” she said. “Companies aren’t doing it very much anymore.”

Mroz said graduates from MTU are in the top 30 percent of incomes in their early careers and in the top 25 percent mid-career.

“If they do their job, we’ll do our job and help them secure a place in this new economy,” he said, listing the various programs the university has not only to help students obtain degrees, but also to help them find work after.

Gealt said CMU dropped 97 of its major programs in an effort to focus on the programs with higher demand. Among the programs added is a new medical school, which he said would see its first graduates next year.

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