CMU President wants Higher Education Funding Reform

This post is about an article that appeared in CM Life, the University newspaper for Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. The article was titled CMU President George Ross calls on state to change performance based funding during Senate testimony.

This photo of CMU president George Ross was taken by Daytona
Niles a staff photographer for CM Life Newspaper.

Central Michigan University President George Ross spoke in front of the Michigan Senate Higher Education Committee on how the performance-based higher education funding should be ran. 

Among the main points on Ross’ speech, given before the committee at Michigan State University on Feb. Thursday 13, was that performance ratings shouldn’t be tied to 4 year graduation rates. He pointed out that there are other factors, such as employment that need to be taken into consideration when examining graduation rates and the length of time it takes to graduate.

Another key point that the CMU president emphasized was that per-student funding needs to be more equal among the various universities in Michigan. Ross pointed out the funding disparities between various schools, and noted that CMU receives less funding than many other schools.

Ross noted that CMU receives less that $3,600 per student per year while Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State receive over $5,600 and Wayne State receives almost $9,500 a year.

The CMU president emphasized 5 additional points that included recognizing more non-STEM programs as critical skills degrees, rewarding universities that keep their funding under control and using different factors to determine the funding schools receive.

The Presidents of various other universities such as Michigan State and the University of Michigan were also present at the meeting and had a chance to speak in front of the committee.

Even though President Ross spent most of his speech pressing for concessions and benefits from the government he closed his speech by applauding Michigan Governor Rick Snyder for increasing funding for education by 6 percent.