With her latest budget proposal, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm is attempting to separate Michigan's three largest public universities--U of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State--from the remaining 12 universities in Michigan in terms of state-based funding.

The aspect of Granholm's proposal that I strongly disagree with is that the Big Three (not the failing auto Big Three) are being rewarded with significantly larger amounts of state funding based solely on the economic scope of their research.

As a student at one of the "other twelve" universities, I believe Granholm's proposal not only sends the wrong message to universities, but also rewards only the research element of a university and neglects the educational aspects. And when I say "educational aspects," I mean class sizes, faculty-student interaction (or lack thereof), high graduation rates, all factors playing into the quality of education offered at a university. Yet Granholm ignores these factors, choosing to only highlight the research productivity of Michigan's universities. And for a university like mine, one that will never be able to compete with U of Mich. or Mich. State, it can be discouraging because all efforts to provide the best educational experience possible go unnoticed and unrewarded.

Also, Granholm's proposal that rewards the economic scope of reseearch done at the university-level sends the message to universities that research productivity, not educational quality, merits funding from the state. I can easily forsee many universities taking funding away from educational areas and reapplying it to research causes, so as to possibly get more state-based funding. And this will only result in the deterioration of undergraduate and graduate teaching and education at Michigan's public universities.

I really that hope Granholm will try to incorporate more educationally-oriented statistics in her future higher ed proposals, but I'm certainly not getting get my hopes up.