Since this is an article about education, let’s begin with a quiz.
Which is the greater amount, $34 million or $39 million?
If that strikes you as a trick question, it is.
But it is also a question that lies at the heart of a disagreement between the State of Michigan and the federal Department of Education that could undermine efforts to help more of our students go to college and earn degrees once they get there.
For the last three years, Michigan has been able to use a federal program called the College Access Challenge Grant to increase the number of underrepresented students who get college degrees and other career related credentials. This program, which was launched by the Bush Administration and expanded in the Obama years, enjoys strong bi-partisan support both in Washington and here in Michigan.
And for good reason. Studies show that by 2018 some 60% of the jobs in Michigan, and the nation as a whole, will require education beyond high school.
If any state understands this new reality, it is Michigan. We lost almost a million jobs over the last decade, many of them good paying jobs that did not require a lot of formal education. Since those jobs are not going to come back, Michigan’s come-back will require raising our level of educational attainment.
That’s where the College Access Challenge Grant comes in. With state resources severely limited, this federal grant, combined with matching funds provided by Michigan’s foundation community, has supported innovative community-based programs that help get more low income and first generation students into higher education and across the finish line with degrees.
Here in Sturgis, we have seen these federal dollars making a difference in several important ways. The grant is helping Sturgis SUCCESS, our community’s coordinating body for college access programs, expand its impact. It has made it possible for Sturgis High School to hire Joseph Robele, a full-time college adviser working to help students plan, apply, and pay for college. And, if the grant is restored, Glen Oaks Community College would be eligible to apply for $150,000 in funding to support initiatives that will help more GOCC students earn degrees.
But today this work in the Sturgis area and other Michigan communities is beginning to grind to a halt. Officials at the federal Department of Education have cut off Michigan’s College Access Challenge Grant because they disagree with spending decisions that were made here over two years ago when the near collapse of the auto industry resulted in deep cuts throughout the state budget.
In a letter sent to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last month, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, asked for that funding to be restored. In his letter, Flanagan argued that Michigan, despite experiencing the worst economic conditions in the country in the year in question (fiscal year 2010), had maintained essential investment in higher education.
And that brings us back to that trick question.
The dispute that is jeopardizing Michigan’s College Access work, may well come down to this.
Federal officials say Michigan should have spent at least $34 million in General Fund revenues on financial aid for students who attend private colleges in 2010. Instead, as Flanagan explains, the state spent $39 million on those scholarships. However, with General Fund revenues down a staggering 18%, the state used a federal block grant for that purpose, not the over-stretched General Fund.
It is unlikely that either the lawmakers who approved that budget or the students who got those scholarships paused for a single minute to fret about which checking account the state used to pay the bill. But so far, that’s all federal officials seem to care about, ignoring how many students Michigan managed to help in the most difficult budget year in recent state history.
With the issue now on Secretary Duncan’s desk, there is reason to be hopeful that Michigan’s grant will be restored. Michigan’s two U. S. Senators and thirteen of our Representatives in Washington have asked him to take that action.
Secretary Duncan has earned a reputation for putting common sense and what’s best for students ahead of bureaucratic business as usual. He got headlines in Michigan when he said he was losing sleep over the depth of the education problems we face here. But the Department he leads has now said no to Michigan in three separate Race to the Top competitions that could have brought hundreds of millions in badly needed funding to the state.
The Secretary may feel he could not control the outcome of the incredibly competitive Race to the Top process. But the decision about whether Michigan should get its College Access Challenge Grant is his and his alone to make.
Given that helping more students earn college degrees is one of the President’s top goals, the decision facing Secretary Duncan isn’t a trick question. It’s a no-brainer.
Brandy Johnson is executive director of the Michigan College Access Network.