Tuition rates significantly outpace inflation at University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University
Bill Petoskey stands near Crisler Arena with his daughters Cassie, a recent Michigan graduate, and Jane, a current U-M student.
Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com
Bill Petoskey attended the University of Michigan in 1975, when it cost about $800 a year for a full course load - roughly $3,200 in today's dollars.
By working as a mover in the summers and a night watchman at Crisler Arena during the school year, he paid for and finished his college education in four years without taking out any loans.
"It seems to me tuition was much more manageable back then," he said.
The numbers show that's true - tuition hikes have significantly outpaced inflation over the last few decades.
Over the last 20 years, inflation was 64 percent, but tuition increased 233 percent at U-M and 318 percent at Eastern Michigan University. Looking at just the last decade, inflation was 29 percent, while tuition increased 84 percent at U-M and 130.4 percent at EMU.
A typical in-state freshman now pays $11,659 for a year's tuition at U-M and $8,377 at EMU. A decade ago, in-state U-M freshmen were paying $6,333 and EMU freshmen were paying $3,636.
Factors behind the tuition hikes
Edward St. John, an expert in higher education policy and the author of such books as Refinancing the College Dream, said the price tag of a college education has experienced dramatic changes over the years.
After World War II, it cost little to attend public, four-year institutions. They were nearly as affordable as attending a free public high school, St. John said.
St. John said several factors drove tuition upward, including 30 years of conservative, anti-tax voting that started with the Carter administration and a string of economic downturns. Yearly tuition hikes are now the norm, and many students shoulder hefty debt to get through college.
EMU is attempting to capitalize on its relative affordability, hoping its "0 0 0" tuition initiative - a promise to freeze tuition, room and board and fees next school year at the current rates - will pay off with higher attendance.
"We have the capacity to grow, and we feel the responsibility to grow," EMU President Susan Martin said. "A lot of people need jobs in the new economy, which is not going to be manufacturing-based. We need to help them do that."
Members of the Eastern Michigan University community stand in a 0% formation to mark the recent approval of a freeze in tuition, room and board and fees for the next academic year. - EMU photo
Meanwhile, U-M officials are tight-lipped on tuition decisions for 2010-2011, which are expected to be before the Board of Regents on June 17.
EMU, a regional university with a $280.9 million budget, is well known for its roots and reputation as a teacher training institution. The school's student population of about 22,931 includes traditional students and a mix of transfer students and adult learners seeking a new beginning. About 90 percent of students are from Michigan, Martin said. She said she hopes the tuition freeze relieves some of the financial burden on students and families - especially for working college students.
U-M is a different animal. The public research institution enjoys a national and international reputation, especially for its medical, engineering and law programs, and runs academic programming with a yearly budget of $1.5 billion. Forty-four percent of U-M's 41,675 students aren't from Michigan and pay three times the in-state tuition rates to attend.
Despite the differences between the universities, administrators at both share the same concerns over rising costs and declining revenues.
Over the past few decades, charts that show state funding compared to tuition at Michigan's public universities "look like scissors," Martin said, with support falling and tuition climbing.
State funding today makes up about a quarter of the general fund budget at U-M and EMU. In the past, students paid less because the state paid more. At U-M, the state contributed 77 percent of the general fund in 1960, compared to 22 percent in the current school year.
State support is just one piece of the puzzle. Universities are labor-intensive - at U-M, for example, almost 70 percent of costs are tied to employees - and salaries and benefits are known to increase faster than the Consumer Price Index.
And not all university investments have an immediate benefit to the bottom line, said Phil Hanlon, U-M's vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs. At U-M, an immense amount of money is invested into technology, buildings and classrooms, for example.
Phil Hanlon, U-M's vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs.
"There's no financial advantage to that investment," Hanlon said.
Instead, places like U-M's $75 million, state-of-the-art Robert H. Lurie Nanofabrication Labaratory bear the fruits of inventions and spin-off companies that will contribute to the economy in untold ways, Hanlon said.
Administrators said the drastic loss of state support, tied to the downfall of Michigan's manufacturing industry, has had the most impact on their bottom lines and is the factor most tied to tuition hikes.
"We believe and hope education is a priority of the state," Hanlon said. "They just have very little revenue to work with."
Between 1999 and 2009, Hanlon noted, Michigan ranked 49th out of 50 states for the money it provided to higher education.
In response, U-M and EMU have taken a number of measures to save millions in areas that don't impact academic programming. They've streamlined information technology, frozen some administrative salaries, cut energy costs and rethought the way space is used, officials from the schools said. They've also ramped up fundraising campaigns and increased in-house financial aid packages by the millions to assist students.
And they've raised tuition yearly.
What's the answer?
But some experts say more money from the state won't solve the funding problem or quell the annual increases.
Andrew Gillen, research director for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit that researches the rising cost of college education, said colleges compete for students and dollars in a market where brand is everything. To maintain that brand, universities need to continually spend to maintain and improve their reputations.
"Higher education is structured in a way where institutions are forced to compete on reputation," Gillen said. "Because they're forced to compete on reputation, it's always beneficial for them to spend more money. They're always searching for ways to raise money, one of those ways being tuition."
Ronald Ehrenberg, author of Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much, puts it a different way, likening college administrators to cookie monsters.
"Maximizing value means making their institutions the best they can be in every area," Ehrenberg writes. "These administrators are like cookie monsters...They seek out all the resources that they can get their hands on and then devour them."
Hanlon, who will assume the role of provost July 1, disagreed.
"No, I'm not a cookie monster," he said, providing a 33-page document that details the ways U-M has worked to cut recurrent costs over the last six years to save $135 million.
Over the next three years, $100 million more will be trimmed from the budget, doubling the intensity of cost-containment efforts, Hanlon said.
Daniel Bennett, a policy analyst for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, said the proliferation of government-backed loans drives higher tuition prices. He argues making loans available only to the students who most need them would fundamentally change a system where the sky’s the limit for increased tuition and the borrowed money to pay for it.
“Economics 101 would tell us this would decrease the demand and the willingness of people to pay exorbitant prices,” he said.
The impact on families
Students and parents impacted by the tuition hikes are saving as much as they can, working more, applying for loans, choosing colleges based on price and taking other measures to ensure higher education remains a possibility.
Petoskey, a former U-M wrestler who now coaches wrestling at Pioneer High School, didn't want his children to feel the burden of paying their way through school. He and his wife Betsy, who met in high school, started trust funds for their three children when they were young to save for college. Jim, 23, and Cassie, 21, graduated from U-M this spring, and Jane, 18, is entering her sophomore year as a Wolverine.
"I had a great time, but it was just way too much," Petoskey said of working through college. "It was hard to concentrate on everything between academics and athletics. It took a toll."
Kristi Amstutz, 20, doesn't get money from her parents for school or for living expenses, so she works at U-M apparel retailer The M Den and babysits throughout the school year.
"Balancing work, school and sleep is very difficult," she said.
Amstutz' financial aid package includes grants and government-backed loans, but she said she can't get additional private loans without a co-signer. She pays out-of-pocket for what aid doesn't cover, and so far, she's racked up $10,000 to $15,000 in debt.
A tuition hike could mean quitting school for the semester, Amstutz said.
"I don't even know if I'll be able to afford courses in the fall," she said. "I've applied for several scholarships, but it's really competitive."
The Michigan Promise grant money she had been receiving helped, but the state eliminated the merit-based aid program this school year. So for now, she said, she'll just keep working in the hopes that she can generate enough cash to continue her studies.
U-M English senior Ricardo Ortiz estimates his debt tops $40,000.
"Ignorance is bliss," said Ortiz, who works at a cafe and theater near campus throughout the year to pay the bills.
Ortiz said working two jobs on top of his studies means his time for fun is limited, but added a tight schedule isn't necessarily a bad thing.
"It has been tough, but it's a way to structure my day," he said "It keeps me in line."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that 56 percent of U-M students are in-state and 44 percent pay out-of-state rates.
Juliana Keeping covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at julianakeeping@annarbor.com or 734-623-2528. Follow Juliana Keeping on Twitter
Comments
jrc
Mon, Jun 14, 2010 : 12:38 p.m.
I think the article tells only part of the story and fails to acknowledge this important feature. Tuition has indeed gone up substantially faster than inflation, but so has financial aid. Looking only at the tuition numbers is like going into TJ Maxx and looking at the "original price" number on the price tag. What you'd really like to have is the out-the-door price of going to UM for Michigan residents (tuition minus scholarship aid; loans and work study are not "free" money). And you'd like to see what that out-of-pocket cost looks like as a function of family income. If costs have gone up for families making a couple of hundred grand a year, I'm not sure that's an outrage (after all, no one is forced to go to UM). If the net cost has gone up for families making less than $75K, that does strike me as a problem worth putting on the front page with a finger-pointing headline. The group that seems most relevant for this discussion is resident undergraduates. The UM has some useful information at: http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/budget/fundingsnapshot/8.html. This indicates that from FY03 to FY10 tuition for resident undergrads went up by 56% and that undergraduate financial aid went up by 215%. (This latter figure seems to be about all undergraduate aid, but residents must get a disproportionate share of the scholarship aid (as opposed to loans/work study funds).) So it is possible that the out-of-pocket cost of attending UM for resident undergrads who are not from wealthy families has gone down over this period. This depends on whether a lot of the increase in aid is in loans, and what has happened to the costs of room and board and books (these are a bit larger than tuition in the UM's current estimates of costs of attendance). It would have been really nice if the reporter had figured this out for us--the headline might have been very different and the graph (of NET cost) might have looked vastly different. It wouldn't have been hard to get a good ballpark estimate of the out-of-pocket costs. At a minimum, the article could have pointed out that that is the figure one should really focus on. There is another slide from that UM presentation that indicates what tuition DOESN'T pay for--athletics, construction, the health system. Those are expensive, but paid for out of tuition. So it's not reasonable to blame the tuition increase on any of that. http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/budget/fundingsnapshot/3.html
Carl Duncan
Mon, Jun 14, 2010 : 12:32 p.m.
EMU can cut a big chunk out of their budget just by defunding the foot ball team and selling the stadium if someone would buy it.
A2K
Mon, Jun 14, 2010 : 7:11 a.m.
Hardly anyone is Unionized at UM except for LEO/Lectures, Police, and Trades/Maintenance - so around 1/4 of the workforce. Salaries at UM are 15-40% lower than the private sector, EXCEPT for some management/upper-administrative positions. What I'm curious to know is the amount of "one-time" payments and bonuses for management as these are not reported on the yearly salary guide. These payments could be studied via FOIA. Recently medical insurance payments made by staff increased dramatically in cost. Salaries have not kept up with inflation in two decades. UM employees aren't "rolling in the dough", they're hurting just like everyone else.
stunhsif
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 3:33 p.m.
The facts as laid out here almost make me sick to my stomach. We've all known this for far too long and we all sit here and do nothing about it. Take a look at the pay structure for folks working at the U-M. Assistant's in the HR department making over 100G and I doubt they have a 4 year college degree?
trespass
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 2:09 p.m.
@Marshall Applewhite- Less than one third of UM staff belong to unions and the only faculty that belong to unions are the lecturers, who are the lowest paid faculty. Thus, UM is far from unionized and has the highest rate of tuition rise.
ChuckL
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 1:16 p.m.
Tuition is not the only thing that has shot through the roof in the last few years; room & board has taken the same trajectory as tuition. Compare the cost of living in an ICC Coop with living in the Dorms over the last 30 years. The ICC Coop's cost increases are in line with inflation while the Dorms are way in excess of inflation. The quoted expert who stated U admins are like cookie monsters was on the right track. There need to be price controls adopted on a national level; the demand for a college education is inelastic and there is no valid reason for costs to have increased the way they have over the last 30 years. Government loans/grants should not be available to schools who raise prices faster than inflation. In addition, schools who receive tuition and fee dollars from loans should have to return half of the money if the student defaults. I don't buy the argument that lack of state funding is entirely responsible for the dramatic rise in tuition; the problem with this argument is that state funding should not have kept up with cost increases way in excess of inflation.
Marshall Applewhite
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 12:57 p.m.
Funny how tuition costs weren't a problem until Universities became fully unionized.........
Left is Right
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 12:02 p.m.
"...the proliferation of government-backed loans drives higher tuition prices. He argues making loans available only to the students who most need them would fundamentally change a system where the skys the limit for increased tuition and the borrowed money to pay for it." Totally agree. We cannot blame university administrators for some mass conspiracy. They are, after all, taking advantage of the glut of money that has been available to them even though the state contribution has declined. I would very much like to see an honest and transparent accounting of where tuition goes nowadays in contrast to where it went in the past. How much--if any--goes to supporting megabuck recruitment packages for "celebrity" faculty? How much goes toward supporting research? Not that either may be a bad way to spend the money but it would be useful to know the split and the trends. And then, maybe they can start tracking return on investment--students and their parents have already started tracking their ROI.
GoBlue2009
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 11:20 a.m.
As a Michigan Alumnus with loans to pay, and still no job a year later, I'd say I'm more concerned about the economy, than this. And why my degree has yet to give me a return on my investment.
johnnya2
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 11:05 a.m.
1. The answer is obvious in one glaring stat. 49/50 in state funding. 2. The salary argument is stupid. How much revenue does having a teaching, research, trauma center hospital bring in with those salaries? 3. People who bitch about people complain about people making too much money amaze me. Is your position if everybody makes less the country will be better off? If nobody can afford to buy or pay for their house what happens? Nobody can afford a car, nobody can afford to live in the city, then it is a huge race to the bottom. If you want to be Mississippi, go live there. 4.As for the myth of "brain drain", people do not leave the area because of the tax burden. Michigan is ranked as the 17th most favorable taxing state int he country. The only state in the region above Michigan is Indiana. Indiana has not seen a huge increase in population. South Dakota is ranked number one. If business taxes are the reason, why isn't South Dakota the hub of industry in this country? People move because they can today. Moving to a new state was much harder 50 years ago. Michigan will always have something going against it in population shifts. WEATHER. The population shifts in the entire country are to the south. Not because of great jobs (Florida's economy is in the tank too) but because it's warm in January. 5. The idea of a ballot initiative is why ballot initiatives need to be banned. California has used this system aggressively. Guess what happens. A popular vote does not take into account other popular votes, and suddenly your hands are tied and nothing can work. The Headlee amendment is a great example of this. You do realize the result was a 50% INCREASE in sales tax. There was a time when in Michigan you paid 4% as a sales tax. This helped sell cars, boats, and snowmobiles. High ticket items. The lower tax crowd refuses to look at the highest tax rate during the Eisenhower administration was 90%. The economy soared. Lower taxes does not help the middle class. It is a way to help the rich. If you want to check the data, see the gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10%.
trespass
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:56 a.m.
@xmo- Less than one third of UM staff belong to unions and the only faculty that belong to unions are the lecturers, who are the lowest paid faculty. This has more to do with attracting research faculty who have been successful in getting federal grants. Chairpersons and administrators that get very high salaries are also usually recruited because of success in getting grants or fundraising. Recruiting these people also often takes promises of expensive technologies or lab space. The recruitment of the chairman of pathology went along with a promise to build a new building just for the pathology department (a promise that was not kept). This does contribute to the teaching of graduate students but has almost nothing to do with teaching undergraduates because these individuals usually have little or no teaching responsibilities. It would be very interesting to do an honest accounting of how much is actually spent on undergraduate teaching and compare that to the tuition. I bet the tuition and state support more than cover those costs.
5c0++ H4d13y
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:43 a.m.
The price of anything goes up because people are willing and able to pay.
WLD1
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:40 a.m.
At this point as long as you have a college degree you have a good chance of getting a "good" job. I have always said that actions speak louder then degree's, or where you got it.
MI-expatriate
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:23 a.m.
Forget the Michigan public universities - have your child apply to a competitive private out-of-state university, and even if you child is not in one of the "preferred" majors, they may wind up with significant merit aid. For our child it was $48,000 over 4 years, plenty to cover the airfare for those occasional visits home. Our eldest child graduated from Michigan in 2009 and although her GPA and extracurriculars were far better than this youngest child's, she got zero in merit aid. She couldn't get a job in Michigan upon graduating either so left the state anyway. The world is bigger than Michigan, parents - let your children find that out early.
Ignatz
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:09 a.m.
Not all U-M employees are union. There are many, such as clericals and "professionals" who do not benefit from collective bargaining. I strongly suspect that those who do belong to unions would not make what they do without them. Having said that, none of them are getting rich because of it. They get a fair wage, but more importantly, they get some modicum of protection from the capricious nature of some bosses. As far as salaries go, not many keep up with the cost of living. In my case, the opposite is true. Benefits, however, are another matter. I realize the cost of those are increasing, though costs are being passed on to the employees.
JimB
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 10:01 a.m.
@Technojunkie, are you suggesting that all the smart high school graduates have moved out of the state of Michigan leaving unqualified applicants to apply to the UofM? It has been a trend from the late 80's to see an out of state student selected for admission to UofM over a resident who has the same grade point average and qualifications. In more recent times, a foriegn student is now selected over the in-state resident with the same qualifications because of the increase in tuition. This has been the trend of hypocracy by the UofM for many years; not a secret to anyone. Just ask the college aged kids from this great state of ours what their experience has been on this subject.
xmo
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 9:45 a.m.
Are the employees of the University UNION EMPLOYEES? "almost 70 percent of costs are tied to employees - and salaries and benefits are known to increase faster than the Consumer Price Index"
trespass
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:58 a.m.
When UM complains about its lack of state funding it forgets the huge amount of property taxes and other taxes to which it is exempt. The Ann Abor property tax payes get to subsidize UM. UM's take over of the Pfizer campus adds dramaticly to that burden. UM's lack of cooperation with Pfizer had a lot to do with their leaving. UM claims that only 7% of their funding comes from state support but that is calculated based on a $5 billion budget. $3.5 billion is from federal grants, providing medical care and the endowment. State funds provide almost 25% of the $1.5 billion that actually provides instruction. If you calculate it, it represents almost exactly the difference between in-state and out of state tuition for Michigan residents. The greatest part of affordability has very little to do with reduced state funding. It is more like the competition between professional or collegiate football teams, which inflate ticket prices in order to compete with their rivals.
Pete Thirtytwo
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:47 a.m.
LOL. I'm sure the workers are so sad to be "enslaved" to a union that guarantees them a high wage.
InsideTheHall
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:44 a.m.
Oh come on Pete that is a JV argument. After all it is our money (taxes) that funds most of higher education (at the public level). Free market you bet, but we enslave the "workers" to a union that monopolizes their labor. Now move along and shine up that black kettle.
a2phiggy
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:40 a.m.
@LadyDi - I disagree - WCC in particular has great relationships with 4-year institutions, and very clear guidelines for classes that will successfully transfer to UM and EMU and other area schools. Of course classes designed for a terminal 2-year degree like an Associate's degree in accounting likely won't transfer well, but those pursuing a 4-year degree and doing the first 2 years at a community college in a general liberal arts program will see all of their credits transfer if they comply with guidelines. I'd appreciate a follow-up articles on housing costs & housing quality @ UM/EMU. Those are as exorbitant as course fees.
Pete Thirtytwo
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:37 a.m.
LOL at InsideTheHall. Some conservative you are! Whatever happened to letting the market sort things out? If tuition is too high because the U. pays its employees too much, customers (students) will go somewhere else. Why don't you start your own university? You could outsource the faculty jobs to India. Heck, I'm sure there are plenty of cheap profs over there who'll teach over the Internet for $5/hr.
Technojunkie
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:15 a.m.
Bloated bureaucracies and new trophy building construction take much of the blame for soaring tuition. Throw in useless new majors such as in the ethnic grievances industry that sap the economy, and in second tier universities lowering admissions standards to bring in thousands of students who are mostly wasting their time, and is any wonder that there's a problem? Even with much lower admissions standards over the past decade the number of foreign students at EMU has soared. There simply aren't enough qualified students left to fill the available seats, their parents having fled Michigan long ago. Most of my high school friends have left the region. Until Michigan stops burdening businesses with so much paperwork like the insane MBT I don't see that changing.
marzan
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:08 a.m.
The article explains why the tuition rates go up, it's because state funding has gone way way way way way down. 49th out of 50th in the nation for higher education funding.
Soothslayer
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 8:06 a.m.
Attending Community College is a great and highly recommended way to transition into higher ed. I've seen tons of kids fresh out of high school thinking they know what they want to do or not at all jump right into a 4 year public or private in or out of state college only to fail miserably or be miserable themselves feeling railroaded into something they thought they wanted to do (the idea sounded good at the time) but in reality wasn't. Go to Community College, take subjects that interest you, get a great education and then transfer. Its a great stepping stone, won't break the bank and you'll get the same or higher quality education than taking the same rudimentaries from a 4 year that you have to take your first and second year anyway for most any program you want to go into.
InsideTheHall
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 7:46 a.m.
Good gosh Juliana using Edward St. John as an information source is laughable. At least balance that view. St. John is a defender of the "system" and blaming conservatives is a common theme is academia when the subject of funding comes up. Perhaps Juliana you could go to the "authority", The Michigan Daily, and perhaps pose the question why UM has over 4,000 employees making over $150K per year. Perhaps you could ask if the sabatical is really required in today's modern era, or perhaps you could examine university benefit packages compared to private institutions and the private sector. Juliana, we expect more from A2.com not just liberal windbags spewing their venom. Start at the link, do the research, and come back to us....hint....compare the rate of inflation in wages to the increase in wages in public education...that will be a good start. http://data.michigandaily.com/tmdsal?dept=&fte_op=%3E&fte[value]=150%2C000&fte[min]=&fte[max]=&title=&campus=All&fname=&lname=
DennisP
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 7:46 a.m.
Trespass makes some very good comments about accountability. But, he or she wants to swat a fly using a 15 lb sledge hammer. You might get the fly or you might not, but you will smash the wall to pieces. A constitutional convention is unneeded and opens the door to all sorts of changes in all other areas of our lives and governance. The only thing that is certain is that the conventioneers will come from the current pool of "leaders" in this State who led us into this same mess. The same people who have had no problem being influenced by big labor, big business and "big anyone else" will write the very foundational law upon which the State exists. Instead, if you want to change the constitutional provisions regarding certain universities, you can do so by petition or referendum. If you can't or won't do it that way, then I recommend making campaigns for Boards of Regents or Trustees into more than window dressings and stepping stones for those with greater political or personal ambitions. Get in front of those campaigns and demand that the candidates show accountability. Get in front and demand that incumbents show just how they each did more than rubber-stamp administrative choices.
ladydi
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 7:41 a.m.
@Edward.. yes, that sounds great to me too, however, graduates from WCC quickly learn that a lot of their credits don't transfer to U of M, especially in Accounting. So, you end up having to re-take classes at U of M that would have easily transferred anywhere else.
rosewater
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 7:27 a.m.
Both public universities get high marks for extortion. They've never been accountable to anyone but themselves and the easiest way to raise funds is from students.
trespass
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 7:18 a.m.
Constitutionally protected autonomy for the state universities is a large part of the problem. We need to vote for the constitutional convention in order to reign in out of control university administrations. University officials floated the idea that they might accept more out of state students in order increase revenue (Michigan Daily) University officials testified that the grade point average required to be admitted to the engineering graduate program has gone up from B- to B+ in the last few years. This has been the result of taking more foreign students, mostly from China, that come with out of state tuition, stipends and in some cases research support. These students will not benefit the Michigan economy like the Michigan students they replace would. The University of Michigan wasted $3.5 million dollars last year paying outside lawfirms to defend misbehaving university officials, as well as millions in settlements, because the administration insists on having biased grievance processes. UM wastes money on ever increasing the size of its police force, which is now nearly the size of the Ann Arbor police. Why do they need their own SWAT team? Maybe it is more important to have affordable tuition than to spend enormous amounts of money on technology and building. These broad strokes should be subject under some control by our elected leaders and not unelected university officials. Cost cutting and setting priorities for the good of the state should not be solely the prerogative of isolated university administrators. Vote yes for the constitutional convention.
Edward R Murrow's Ghost
Sun, Jun 13, 2010 : 6:47 a.m.
Sounds like a good reason to attend community college for two years! Good Night and Good Luck