On June 19, Glen Mroz, President of Michigan Technological University, announced via e-mail that the university’s tuition would be affected by the annual budget plan approved for Michigan state universities.
According to the e-mail, the budget plan for the 2017-2018 financial year as passed by the state legislature included a 2 percent increase in the funds that the university receives from the state, as well as a tuition increase cap of 3.8 percent. The e-mail also stated that Tech is on track to keep tuition increases within that cap for the coming year.
While Mroz used the e-mail to express his gratitude for “the state’s efforts to increase funding,” he also reminded recipients that the university is still receiving significantly less state funding than it did in the previous decade. The e-mail also stated that the increase to state funding was significantly less than the planned increase in Tech’s budget for this year, though much of the difference would be made up for by “reallocation of existing resources to higher priority needs.”
Since the budget was passed over the summer, any effect that it had on tuition for the fall semester has already been felt by students. In anticipation of this, the e-mail included a link to an online tool that students could use to assess the cost of the academic year based on factors including Graduate or Undergraduate status, number of credits completed, and whether they were in-state or out-of-state students.
The budget proposal also includes $11 million in additional funding to Michigan’s two largest broad-based financial aid programs. The budget also includes an additional $5.3 million for the tuition incentive program. The budget also explains that the tuition cap is calculated to accommodate for expected inflation, as well as university differences in base tuition rates. These increases in aid programs are part of a program to increase the percentage of Michigan’s population with a college degree to 60 percent or higher by 2025
According to Michigan.Gov, “more than 75 percent of the total budget is devoted to education and health and human services.”
