Lansing, Mich. — Last week, the Michigan House of Representatives passed several appropriation bills, including proposed budgets for community colleges, higher education, and the school aid fund. As written, these bills would drastically change the funding models for K-12 education, public universities and community colleges.
Where budgets from the Executive Office and the Senate increased operational funding for higher education, the House budget would decrease total funding, with huge cuts to two of our state’s leading research universities. Overall, the House budget would decrease public university funding by $51.6 million, for an overall 3.1% reduction in operational funding. This cut comes at the expense of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, whose funding would be reduced by 65% ($234.4 million), and Michigan State University, whose funding would be cut by 18% ($56.6 million). Additionally, community college funding is cut by $3.6 million, with projected decreases for individual community colleges ranging from 0.8% to 1.3%.
The House budget bills also include a 4.3% increase in K-12 per pupil funding, resulting in $10,025 per student, plus additional per pupil funding for schools, districts, and ISDs that meet certain criteria. However, this level of per pupil funding, which is greater than those in the Executive or Senate budget proposals, is achieved by making $1.2 billion in changes to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System, pulling $1 billion in “rainy day” funds and "rolling up" about $1.45 billion in targeted categorical funding into general per pupil payments. This approach to categorical items reallocates MCAN’s state appropriation into the per pupil model, effectively eliminating funding to the organization.
Under the House bills, both K-12 schools and higher education institutions would face financial consequences for allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports, using funding for DEI efforts or providing multi-stall unisex bathrooms.
The state budget process now moves into the negotiation phase, where a conference committee with representatives from the Senate, House and Executive Office will work to reconcile the chambers’ budget bills and the governor’s budget proposal.
Statement from MCAN Executive Director Ryan Fewins-Bliss:
“MCAN thanks the House leadership for introducing its education appropriations bills. It is critical that our school districts and colleges are able to accurately budget for the coming year, and a timely state budget is the only way to achieve that.
“MCAN has been discussing college and school financing reform for years, and while we applaud the House of Representatives for attempting to rebuild a failed funding formula for education, these changes lack accountability and a long-term, sustainable structure. We encourage the legislature and governor to gather experts and take some time to rethink how Michigan funds education. In the meantime, we should continue to invest in K-12 school districts and our public colleges in the FY26 state budget. The current budget bills passed by the House will not get us to the state’s Sixty by 30 college attainment goal, which is what we should be laser-focused on. MCAN will continue to advise the legislature throughout the budget process.”
Recently passes budget bills would upend funding models for K-12, higher education