Governor Jennifer Granholm approved a state bud­get for the 09–10 fis­cal year that elim­i­nated all fund­ing for the Michigan Promise scholarship.

The Promise schol­ar­ships, which would have pro­vided between $1,000 and $4,000 for over 90,000 qual­i­fy­ing Michigan stu­dents, were meant to help ease the cost of col­lege and pro­mote post high school edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties in the state.

One of the pil­lars of any strong econ­omy is an edu­cated soci­ety. As we con­tinue to elim­i­nate chances for the peo­ple of Michigan to par­tic­i­pate in higher edu­ca­tion, we pro­long our finan­cial detri­ment and cre­ate a gen­er­a­tion of ill-equipped young peo­ple to inherit the responsibility.

The prob­lem isn’t the bud­get process, it’s that those respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing this bud­get ben­e­fit more from the bat­tle and less from the progress. For months the Michigan Promise fund­ing has been up for debate. This didn’t sneak up on any­one. But it’s bet­ter if the can­di­date is shown shak­ing a fist and sput­ter­ing red faced in sup­port of or against an item, like the Michigan Promise, to keep inter­est and focus on the bud­get process so that sub­se­quent fin­ger point­ing after the sign­ing may commence.

There is a dev­as­tat­ing need for state level action in the time between elec­tions, not just the run-up to them.

Was the pro­posed amount for the Promise schol­ar­ships of $140 mil­lion too much to tell the lead­ers of tomor­row that the gov­ern­ment is putting its trust into them? It’s pos­si­ble that cut­ting the fund­ing helped to bring about a bud­get res­o­lu­tion and keep the deficit from get­ting any big­ger, but at the cost of Michigan’s future, that’s a pretty high price to pay.