Business leaders say Grand Valley shows solid performance

The Business Leaders for Michigan appeared before a joint House and Senate subcommittee Wednesday to deliver a Higher Education Performance Tracker and used Grand Valley as an example of solid performance for the state.
 
BLM is a private, nonprofit organization made up of senior executives of the state’s largest employers. Its stated goal is to help the state become a top ten state for jobs, and supporting higher education is a key point of its “Michigan Turnaround Plan.”
 
During the last year, BLM worked with the Anderson Economic Group and the Presidents Council-State Universities of Michigan to develop the Performance Tracker of the state’s 15 public universities.
 
BLM’s CEO Doug Rothwell told lawmakers, “In particular, we’ve cited the important role higher education plays in both producing the talent we need to grow the economy and the potential it has to be a bigger economic growth engine for the state.”
 
The report looks at universities productivity, efficiency, affordability, economic impact and access, and it compares Michigan’s public universities to peers across the country.
 
Rothwell pulled out Grand Valley as an example:

"For demonstration purposes, let’s look at Grand Valley State University. You can see how they compare to their peer average and the Top 20 percent of their peers on metrics such as:
-  The level of state appropriations;
-   Under the Productivity and Efficiency section: Enrollment, Graduation Rate & Degrees conferred;
-   Under Affordability and Access you will see measures like the total cost of attendance and the percent of Pell students attending;
-   Under Economic Impact you will see core expenditures and revenues."

Under every metric, Grand Valley’s performance is strong, however state support for Grand Valley is notably low.