Here come the cuts

This is the look we have to attract good students to Michigan higher ed.

The cuts are among us again. They are giving us less than a week to decide how to cut about 10% more of our budget again. How do you take the skin off a skeleton? Take away the bones, and that is what the administrations (state and school) are up to.

Welcome to Michigan, a state in the lower half of the nation for educational attainment (21.8% with a bachelors degree, versus 24.4% average in the US) and determined to keep it that way. Oh, and BTW also the state with a consistently worsening economy, and accelerating job loss.

So the good news? Not really much, except a few people (Rebecca Solnit, Harper's July 2007) are beginning to see that a greening, a greening that is NOT based on the current trend of the affluent getting "off the grid" may be taking place in our forlorn state. There is more we can do to become healthy, but first we have to fix our perceptions and our poor, poor administrative base.