The following column, by Grand Valley President Mark A. Murray was published in the Grand Rapids Press on Saturday, May 22, 2004:
Almost 50 years ago, Michigan's governor faced a situation that has considerable relevance to the issues we face today.
In his 1956 State of the State address, Gov. G. Mennen Williams saw the challenge that automation posed to manufacturing employment. Williams spoke of the "urgency of the need for just catching up with today." He spoke of "miracle machines." He pointed out that "10,000 men in one foundry and engine plant are now turning out the same number of automobile engine blocks as formerly were turned out by 23,000." Imagine how few are in such a plant today -- a few hundred? A thousand?
What was his source of hope? He said, "We must greatly step up our education program." He pointed out that the coming era will "require higher skills and more skills than were ever possessed by any people anywhere. We'll need as many Einsteins as we can find."
What ensued was the greatest expansion of higher education opportunities in human history. From the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, this state and the nation widened a path that had once been more narrow. Total enrollment in higher education soared. In Michigan, total enrollment in institutions of higher education went from 135,000 in 1956 to 470,000 20 years later -- driven primarily by the great expansion of public universities and community colleges.
Because we invested in a system to create "higher skills and more skills than were ever possessed by any people anywhere," America and this state had a remarkable surge of innovation and prosperity in the second half of the 20th Century.
Grand Valley State University is part of that story. Bill Seidman and other West Michigan leaders asked Gov. Williams to support a new public university in this region. In 1960, Williams signed the law establishing Grand Valley State College. Our pioneering class and their pioneering faculty completed their first year of classes just 40 years ago this spring.
We continue this work while being careful stewards of state and student resources. In some quarters, there is a view that higher education costs are excessive. The record at Grand Valley is the opposite. The total per student operating cost of the university is only $9,500 per student. Only one of Michigan's 15 public universities provides an education less expensively.
Not only are we a low-cost, high-quality provider, but our operating-cost increases were less than 2 percent per student in the 2001-2002 academic year and the 2002-2003 academic year. When the bills are finally counted for this academic year, we expect operating-cost increases to be about 1.2 percent per student. Next year, we will again keep our operating-cost increase at or below inflation. Grand Valley has been ranked one of the 100 best buys in the nation in each of the past eight years!
This commitment to holding down our costs is a core value of Grand Valley, but unfortunately, the students continue to pay an ever higher share of these costs. With the grave fiscal challenges facing the state, state support has been reduced and tuition has been increased to cover those essential costs that remain after other operating efficiencies have been implemented.
For the coming year, the governor and legislative leadership are attempting to finalize a significant reversal of recent trends. Even in the face of budget cuts, the goal is to increase funding to universities by 3 percent, with universities pledging to increase tuition by no more than 2.4 percent -- for Grand Valley just $67 per semester for in-state undergraduates. At Grand Valley, we welcome this opportunity. I will recommend that the board adopt such a modest tuition increase if the state can match that restraint with their funding increase.
