Falling state aid, not rising university costs, is indeed the reason for higher tuitions.

I read yet another conservative think tank article this week (Michigan based) trying to make it look like Michigan's public universities are arbitrarily increasing student's tuition rates for no reason and that the tuition increases have nothing to do with less state support. Not only is the article wrong in what its title asserts, it has several flaws. This article is found in The Bridge, dated April 22, 2016 and titled:

Rising university costs, not falling state aid, is the real reason for lack of affordability


What I find amazing, is that the authors displayed a graph that cleary shows a DECREASING state appropriations cost and try to say that this has no effect on why Universities have had to increase tuition. The authors also point out that University revenue has increased modestly since 2006 when adjusted for inflation, like that is a bad thing. Of course revenue is up in 2006, we have more students in 2016 than ten years ago! For example, my employer (Oakland University) has almost doubled the number of students it had since I joined the Faculty in 2001. We have also increased the amount of external funds we have won from research funding and education grant competitions. I have brought a couple million $$ of external funding into OU just myself as a vision scientist. Many of my colleagues hired around the same time have done the same. We also have several new buildings on campus full of more students in Nursing, Health Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science. Most built since 2006. Of course University total revenue is up since 2006.

The fatal flaw in the Bridge article is that nothin is analyzed in terms of education cost per student. Another flaw is that the analysis only looks back to 2006 and leaves out preceding years where most of the State's divestment in the State's share of a student's education had already transpired.  

Read the Bridge article and then read this information below if you want to know how public universities set a student's tuition (student's share of education cost).

First - Not all state appropriations are available to apply to student education-costs. When my University gets 40-million to construct 50% of a new engineering or health science center, we do not get to spend that on a student's yearly operational education cost.

Second- You need to take the time line way back to see how the State's share has changed. Like back to 1980?

Third - Since 1980 the national accumulated inflation rate is just over 185%. The cost of educating a student at many public universities has increased just a bit over that rate, because some costs like computing technology and research compliance management are additional since 1980. However, the education cost in 1980 of about $4500 per student has increased with the accumulated US inflation rate of just over 185%. That would place student education costs to almost $14,000. (There are many calculator websites you can use to check inflation effects such as :  www.usinflationcalculator.com) My own $1,200 per year tuition in 1980 would now be $3,400 per year based on this rate of inflation. SO, why are my own kid's tuitions well over $10,000 per year now? (They both attend public university in Michigan.) Simple, because the percentage of their education-cost provided by the State has decreased dramatically since 1980.

Forth- Many State's have dramatically decreased their contribution to the percentage of a student's education cost. In 1980 my share of my education-cost (TUITION) was $1,200, which represented about 25% of my education-cost and many States provided the other 75%. This year, at many public universities, the State contribution to a student's education cost is less than 20%. At the university where I work, we are getting a only %16 of the student's education-cost in 2016.

Fifth- I am a university professor. Are professor salaries too high? No. Salaries are all public data and they show that the average full-time professor at Michigan's public universities makes between $60- to $80-thousand dollars per year, which is accounted for by the US inflation rate since 1980 salaries. I drive a Toyota to work every day, not a BMW. I clearly did not become a professor and medical researcher to get rich quick. Nor did most of my colleagues.

Sixth - Michigan is not alone in its divestment in our Kid's college education costs. Many States  have divested their percentage contribution to our student's education-costs since 1980. What is sad, in my opinion, is that these legislative decisions have been made by people around my age, who were also able to make their next year's tuition simply by working two months in the Summer preceding the next school year. We then had the joy of graduating debt-free from our first 4-year degrees, especially if we went to school near the Family home.


Is it smart for us as a State, as a community, to be divesting and not investing in our own Kid's education and training? I do not think so. Just my opinion, but I think many Michigan Parents and GrandParents have the same opinion.

When Politicians Hide Science: bad stuff happens

Flint’s legacy may include dramatic expansion of public records law.

Read about a bipartisan effort in the Michigan state gov't. Will it go anywhere?

https://t.co/dyVO9CwsSr

via @BridgeMichigan

Officials in the Michigan Governor's office sent emails to each other literally noting in the message that they were not copying to the MDEQ ( Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) because MDEQ email was subject to the Freedom of Information Act. (FOIA) But only two States of our Union currently exempt the Governor's office from FOIA requests. You guessed it, Michigan is one of them.

Ah. Science reality. Like gravity is gravity, lead in your Kid's drinking water is lead in your Kid's brain.

Time to stop being yellow and stop burying heads in the sand if you want the trust of the people? Keeping gravity a secret would not have stopped Newton from getting "beaned by the apple good" as REM sang.

Its time for transparency in Michigan.

The Who...Sound Science for a Scientist.

These fellows got me through high school. Guitars turned out to be my drug of choice, and I figured a tiny guy like me better keep and use his brain to get somewhere. So, very scientific choice for a future scientist. I mostly discovered the who in junior high, helping file records away in the CHCL 1450AM record library, where Mom and Dad were volunteer DJs. Cold Lake, Grand Centre, Alberta.

There was a wall bin unit in the 45 library with a stack of 100 singles for each year since the late 50s. Over a the next year, i listened to every one. One year at a time. In early 60s, i put My Generation on the library turntable, headphones on. Those big ones that enclose your ears.

Later The Kids Are Alright movie came out too, and I had my parents order the soundtrack. Radio stations could see lists of release dates and order vinyl weeks before a store in the big city (Edmonton) would get them.

Awesome. The science of sound.

Dr Mitton listening to #TheWho ... Behind Blue @eyeresearchers. ;) @OaklandU https://t.co/skgEXjsFIv https://twitter.com/kpmitton/status/703824562157260800

Depression and Stress in College Students is Common: Its not just you.

Read a bit about depression in college students in my other blog at Wordpress. Over 50% of college students experience depression or problems from stress in their first few years of college. If that is you, it was me too, and you are not alone.

Read more here at the blog on my website at KenMitton.com :

https://kenmitton.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/depression-is-a-trip/

Summer Undergraduate Program in Eye Research: 15th Annual Symposium. July 31, 2015

The Summer Undergraduate Program in Eye Research: 15th Annual Symposium is coming up on July 31, 2015. Another seven OU undergraduate bioscience students will be presenting talks on their summer research experiences here in the Eye Research Institute of Oakland University. While this is year 15 for the formal SUPER program, OU and other Michigan college and high school students have been training in the ERI ever since our institute was founded by Dr Kinsey over 40 years ago. SUPER program alumni achieve an extremely high participation rate in entering professional and graduate schools.

Recent SUPER students from past years continue to move along in their training and careers in graduate school, medical school, dental school and optometry school. For example, SUPER alum Mary Cha (US Army active reserve) has served as a medic in Afganistan and is starting medical school at MSU this fall. Trung Tran has obtained a Masters degree in public health from Washington University and is starting medical school at Wayne State this fall.

SUPER scholars work on real research projects in ERI laboratories and most will obtain co-authorships at some point on research publications from our labs. Scholars have applied for the program in the past winter term, maintain a minimum GPA, write an application essay, and go through interview with ERI faculty. The seven SUPER students this summer also had a $3,500 paid scholarship for the 12 week program. Students also received a basic science or clinical ophthalmology lecture from ERI and Beaumont Ophthalmology faculty each week.

We thank all those who support the program with funding, including the ERI itself, OU’s Provost Office (Dr Lentini), OU’s Center for Biomedical Research (Dr Brad Roth), the Vision Research ROPARD Foundation and Richard Skipper, President and CEO of SKIHI Enterprises in Fort Worth, Texas. Together we are all training future leaders, scientists, engineers and medical professionals.

IThis year’s program in, 302 Pawley Hall:

9:15 a.m. – Welcome and Introduction
Dr. Frank J. Giblin, Director ERI

9:30 a.m. – Caroline Cencer (Dr. Giblin)
UVB induced cataractogenesis: the story of DNA repair in the human lens

9:45 a.m. – Jonathan Cheon (Dr. Giblin)
Understanding cataracts: a biochemical exploration of crystallin protein aggregation in the lens

10:00 a.m. – Natalie Wardia (Dr. Drenser)
Maintaining and restoring adherens and tight junction connections between retinal vascular endothelial cells

10:15 a.m. – Nicole Roussey (Dr. Goldberg)
Does Peripherin-2/rds (P/rds) shape membranes using disulfide bonds?

10:30 a.m. – Quentin Thompkins (Dr.Mitton)
Mechanisms of retina stress: the effects of exercise in type-1 diabetic rats

10:45 a.m. – Naveena Daram (Dr. Chintala)
Tissue and urokinase plasminogen activators instigate the Degeneration of Retinal Ganglion Cells in a Mouse Model of Glaucoma

11:00 a.m. – Joshua Hohlbein (Dr. Zhang)
Cholinergic Amacrine Cell Survival Contrasts the Loss of AII Amacrine Cells in a Mouse Model of Oxygen-induced Retinopathy

11:15 a.m. – Presentation of Certificates
Dr. Kenneth P. Mitton, S.U.P.E.R. Coordinator

Lunch at Noon, 316 Pawley Hall

1 p.m. Guests’ tour of the ERI (Dodge Hall)

Student Photos with Mentors (403 DHE)

(KPM)

(also posted in Dr Mitton's professional blog at 

https://kenmitton.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/summer-undergraduate-program-in-eye-research-15th-annual-symposium-july-31-2015/ ) 

Michigan Cuts State's Share of University Student's Education Costs, then some Politicians Blame Universities for Tuition Increases.

So far, Wayne State University, Eastern Michigan University and now Oakland University are the first of Michigan's public universities to dare to increase tuition above the Michigan State Government's tuition cap. Breaking this cap results in a penalty through the loss of a portion of the State's funding support. However, these universities gain more funding through the tuition increases. Of course, sure enough, I hear sound-bites on the radio from State appropriation committee members suggesting that they add more teeth to penalize these universities further for raising tuition far more than the rate of inflation. Universities, in this State and around the country are accused of gouging students and wasting money. However, what these same politicians fail to mention is that they have also spent the last 20 years dramatically decreasing the State's percentage contribution to our student's education costs. As a matter of fact, in 2015, Michigan contributes a tiny 16% of an Oakland University student's education cost, compared to the early 1980s when Michigan contributed around 70% of a student's education cost. Your kid's and my kid's college tuition has increased more than the US inflation rate since 1980, but that is not a correct comparison. The education costs of a student at Oakland University has only increased the same as inflation since 1980. So why has the tuition component grown faster than inflation? Because, our State has dramatically decreased its contribution the education costs pie. If you want to see the numbers, and you like facts more than ideology, read on.