HIGHER ED CUTS LIKELY TO COME FROM FINANCIAL AID

If lawmakers pursue proposed cuts to the state's 15 public universities, financial aid will likely be the focus of those reductions because federal stimulus dollars dictate the state can't cut school operations.

Earlier this week, the House set budget targets that included a $90 million reduction for higher education.

Rep. Joan Bauer (D-Lansing), who chairs the budget in that chamber, said Friday the rules of federal stimulus and the limitation of items in the higher education budget will mean lawmakers have to look at cuts to financial aid.

"That's just so unfortunate," she said, as many residents have lost their jobs and are struggling to keep their kids in college.

Ms. Bauer said she will be meeting with members of her subcommittee and the House Fiscal Agency to come up with some scenarios for cuts to financial aid.

A blend of continuing to provide both need and merit-based financial aid at lower levels, as opposed to slashing entire programs, is preferred and lawmakers will set out to minimize the impact of financial aid reductions in terms of what that means to access to college.

"I'm not there at all," she said of proposing elimination of financial aid programs.

But all of the state's college assistance programs will be reviewed, including the Tuition Grant, she said.

Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, said public universities are still committed to increasing financial aid assistance to students by at least as much as any tuition increase.

But whether schools will have tuition increases is still unknown because the higher education budget has yet to be completed. Mr. Boulus said schools are holding off making those determinations, but by July schools will have to put together their tuition and financial aid packages to prepare for the fall semester.

"Affordability and accessibility are important to us," he said.

While it's "disheartening" to see potential cuts to state financial aid, Mr. Boulus noted the president's commitment to increasing federal college assistance. He also noted the governor's budget proposed cutting higher education by $100 million and federal stimulus could backfill $68 million of that.

WHAT NOW FOR BUDGETS: With Senate Republicans still working out their budget targets and House Democrats already setting their's, the question is what happens now?

The traditional swapping of first budgets hasn't completely transpired as the House sent all of its first house, minus the budgets for the Departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources, to the Senate. The Senate has sent only two budgets, Departments of Energy, Labor and Economic Development and History, Arts and Libraries, to the House.

However, both chambers have been holding hearings on budgets even if they are not formally before the subcommittees.

At this point it appears each House chair is taking a different approach to resolving their budgets in this non-traditional format.

Some chairs are working collaboratively with their Senate counterparts on coming up with program changes and getting to the point of having a conference committee by the end of the month, while others are using the House targets to find cuts on their own.  

Sources have noted that each chamber can move budgets through shell vehicle bills, as opposed to using the bills already established for the budgets, if such a move is needed.

The budget to have made it the furthest, in terms of the traditional process, is the DELEG budget (SB 243), which is scheduled to be taken up by the House Appropriations Committee next week.