Grand Valley State University student senators are persistently trying to ensure adequate funding from the state for future Lakers. Because of their efforts, and after sending a few student senators to Lansing, Michigan to speak with congressional representatives and senators, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder released his budget for the next fiscal year. In his proposed budget, he included an increase in funding for higher education by 4.3 percent. According to the budget Grand Valley State University will expect to receive the highest increase in funding of all the 15 public universities with a proposed 6.8 percent increase.

Prior to the budget announcement, Vice President for Finance Jeremy Turnbull and senators Mike Sullivan and Kelsey Lugin set off to Lansing to speak with House members who could possibly help allocate more funding to GVSU.

They spoke with both senators and representatives about why GVSU’s funding was comparatively low considering its rank in the performance-based metrics for public universities. While increasing funding sounded like a good idea, raising the funding for only one school could create potential problems and conflict with other universities. If funding were to shift more toward performance-based metrics, other universities would see a significant decrease in funding.

The state funding advocacy group at GVSU has made sure their approach to the funding problem will encompass all schools.

“(We) are advocating for ways to gain more attention and support for amending the current system in Lansing,” Lugin said. “Keeping our goals under the broad umbrella of the system as a whole is vital. Making a purely GV-centric argument to give us more funds will create backlash from other schools.”

It looks like their hard work has paid off – literally.

The plan is only a proposed budget; it still must get the approval of the Michigan House of Representatives and the Senate.

Sullivan stressed the importance of the student senators reaching out to their representatives, saying it was vital that this problem be addressed.

“Last year, for this year’s school year, the governor proposed a 4 percent increase but the legislature knocked it down to 2.5 (percent),” Sullivan said. “(It’s) most likely that the legislature is going to knock this 6.8 percent down quite a bit, we just have to make sure that it’s not that much.”

GVSU has consistently been one of the lowest-funded schools by the government despite having some of the highest performance metric rankings. The state average of money allocated per fiscal year equated students (FYES) is $5,182. GVSU only receives $2,943 per FYES.

In the fall of 2015, GVSU had the third-highest graduation rate in the state at almost 65 percent. It also ranked fourth in retention rate from freshman to sophomore year with 83.2 percent. GVSU students also continue to contribute to the state after they graduate, with 90 percent of recent graduates either employed or seeking an advanced degree. In addition, 83.8 percent are employed in Michigan.

Student senate hopes to make future trips to Lansing to further discuss this issue. They hope to keep encouraging students to reach out to their representatives and urge them to take a look at the discrepancy between funding allocations.