On March 2, Grand Valley President Thomas J. Haas spoke before the
state House Higher Education Subcommittee in Lansing on behalf of the
university to address Gov. Synder’s higher education budget proposal.
Haas told subcommittee members that when it comes to the
operating appropriation, the State of Michigan has largely privatized
Grand Valley State University. “If the proposed executive budget is
adopted, the taxpayers’ share of Grand Valley’s operating budget will
be 17 percent,” said Haas. “In spite of this development, or perhaps
because of it, we have always had to live within our means. We cut
millions from our budgets in each of the last two years. We levy a
tuition rate that is below the state average and in the last five
years, we’ve increased student financial aid by 55 percent.”
Haas added, “We have frozen the room rate in campus housing for
next year at the 2010 level and 100 percent of our employees — faculty
and staff, union and non-union alike — are on a salary freeze this
year. Also, more than half of our faculty and staff made voluntary
contributions to scholarships and the needy student fund, recognizing
that this is a year when extra help is warranted.”
Haas said while the state’s investment in Grand Valley is
shrinking, the university is doing even more to help the state. “Our
students come from every corner of Michigan,” he said. “Of our most
recent graduating class, 92 percent are working or in graduate school
— 88 percent of them in Michigan. Our graduates stay here, helping to
lead Michigan’s economic recovery in the jobs of the 21st century.”
Haas called Grand Valley an economic engine. “We create more
than $640 million in economic activity in the communities that host
our campuses,” he said. “More than 10,000 private sector jobs in West
Michigan exist because of the goods and services bought by Grand
Valley, our employees and our students.
Click here to read his full testimony.
