Cost of a college eduation coming under increasing scrutiny in Michigan

Bridge magazine has an excellent package of stories this week on skyrocketing college costs in Michigan. (Disclosure: I'm a regular contributor to Bridge, but was not involved in this special report.)

Rising college costs are a problem in many states, but especially in Michigan. Bridge found that college costs here are among the highest in the country while state support for higher education is among the lowest in the country.

Those costs are putting an incredible financial burden on students and their families. Michigan students took out $1.8 billion in loans to finance college in 2010, up $600 million from 2007, according to Bridge. And that figure appears not to include loans taken out by parents to finance their children's eduction.

In today's Detroit News, columnist Marney Rich Keenan discusses her family's struggles with paying college costs for three daughters. Says Keenan:

As a state, and a country, for that matter, we can't keep on insisting our future depends on a highly educated work force and then not provide an affordable path for families to get their children college degrees.

So what can be done?



Senate Democrats announced a plan this week that would essentially provide a free college education to most students in Michigan. That would cost about $1.8 billion a year and be paid for by cutting a variety of tax loopholes, technically known as "tax expenditures."

Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based think tank, has proposed shifting state funding from universities to students. Its plan would also would provide tuition assistance to any student from around the world who wants to study in Michigan:

Public funds would be used to help students from anywhere on the planet who can meet entrance requirements to better afford Michigan’s higher education system. This might be the most powerful statement we can make that we want the most talented people in the world to come here to learn and ultimately live and work.

Neither of these proposals are likely to gain much traction in Republican-controlled legislature. Many Republicans, and probably some Democrats, see the problem as too much spending by the universities. The universities counter that they have cut millions of dollars from their budgets in the face of declining state support.

A wise person once told me that we used to see a college education as a societal good. We now see it as an individual good, so if you want a college degree, you should pay the entire cost yourself.

Unless we return to believing that there's a great social and economic benefit to having a high percentage of citizens with college degrees, we'll face a future of ever-rising tuition costs.