Governor Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan leg­is­la­ture are look­ing into a pro­posal to amend the Tuition Incentive Program that ben­e­fits cer­tain col­lege students.

As part of Granholm’s pro­posed higher edu­ca­tion bud­get, she is propos­ing a cap on the amount of that will be cov­ered by the gov­ern­ment for TIP stu­dents. The TIP is a two phase finan­cial assis­tance pro­gram that helps qual­i­fied stu­dents pay tuition and make col­lege more affordable.

Phase I cov­ers tuition costs and manda­tory fee charges for eli­gi­ble stu­dents who are enrolled in an asso­ciate degree or cer­tifi­cate pro­gram (or their first two years) at a par­tic­i­pat­ing Michigan com­mu­nity col­lege, pub­lic uni­ver­sity, and other edu­ca­tional institutions.

Phase II pro­vides $2,000 total tuition assis­tance for cred­its earned in a four year pro­gram at a Michigan degree-granting col­lege or university.

Melissa DiVietri, a print man­age­ment stu­dent that ben­e­fits from the TIP said, “The TIP schol­ar­ship is impor­tant for my edu­ca­tion because it adds to my forms of finan­cial aid and helps cover most of my tuition.”

Granholm’s pro­posal is that the TIP would cap the tuition at an aver­age com­mu­nity col­lege rate. For Ferris TIP stu­dents this means that the change to the pro­gram would only cover $84 per credit hour instead of the cur­rent $316 per credit hour. Her pro­posal would also elim­i­nate the Phase II por­tion of the program.

DiVietri said the changes to the schol­ar­ship will greatly affect uni­ver­sity stu­dents and may “force them to go to a com­mu­nity college.”

Ferris President, David Eisler said, “We have lob­bied this issue hard at both the [Michigan] Senate and House level.” Students would have to make up the tuition dif­fer­ence the TIP would cover. He pro­jected this would be around $7,300.

Early last week the Senate Higher Education Committee was on cam­pus and Eisler strongly argued against Granholm’s proposal.

In his remarks he said, “The governor’s pro­posal would be dev­as­tat­ing for the pro­gram and our students.”  

Late last week the Senate Higher Education Committee put out the higher edu­ca­tion bud­get.  In it they restored the roughly $6.3 mil­lion TIP monies Granholm had cut. The House will next be hold­ing hear­ing in Lansing regard­ing the issue, where Eisler plans to testify.

“This seemed pretty bleak when the Governor issued her bud­get, but we are gain­ing trac­tion on the issue,” said Eisler. “We still need to work through the House, but we are hav­ing pos­i­tive results.”

Even though the fate of the TIP schol­ar­ship is uncer­tain, DiVietri said, “I am still look­ing for grants and schol­ar­ship online because there is never enough money for
edu­ca­tion.” n