Michigan schol­ar­ships may be cut pend­ing an upcom­ing bud­get deadline

Amidst the strug­gling econ­omy cur­rently present in Michigan, higher edu­ca­tion may be in jeop­ardy if the deci­sion is made to cut state of Michigan funded Scholarships from the state budget.

According to the Lansing State Journal, “The Promise Grants give stu­dents who did well in school the oppor­tu­nity to attend a Michigan com­mu­nity col­lege, uni­ver­sity or voca­tional pro­gram by pro­vid­ing up to $4,000 over the course of their education.”

The state bud­get deficit cur­rently stands at $1.8 bil­lion and if this schol­ar­ship is cut will save the state $140 mil­lion. This is caus­ing a back­lash by many due to the fact that many stu­dents will now have trou­ble pay­ing for a col­lege education.

A deci­sion is expected to be reached by the Oct. 1 dead­line. Students who cur­rently rely on this fund­ing for their edu­ca­tion now have an uncer­tain future and may not know the out­come for a month or more.

The Detroit News recently stated in an online arti­cle that, “More than 96,000 stu­dents will head to col­lege cam­puses in the next few weeks still unsure of whether the state will honor their Michigan Promise Scholarship awards.”

The same arti­cle also said that the state sen­ate voted in June to dis­con­tinue the pro­gram, while the house and governor’s ver­sions of the higher edu­ca­tion bud­get want to include fund­ing for this scholarship.

The deci­sion that will affect this pro­gram will have to be set­tled by these three bod­ies by Oct. 1.