U-M, MSU Cuts Mean Other U's See 25% More State Funding Under New House Plan

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 06/12/2025) The University of Michigan would lose 65.1 percent of its state funding and Michigan State University 18.3 percent of its state funding, with the remaining 13 state universities gaining around 25 percent more, under a higher education budget proposal the House passed late Thursday evening with the minimum 56 "yes" votes needed.

Rep. Steve Carra (R-Three Rivers) was the only Republican to vote no on the bill. Rep. James DeSana (R-Carleton) left before the higher education budget was taken. Thirteen other members were absent, leaving the vote total at 56-41.

After 10 hours of negotiations and changes, the revamped House bill, HB 4580 , still makes deep state revenue cuts to Michigan's two biggest universities with the expectation that both can use their substantial endowment pots to make up the difference if needed. U-M's is in for more than $237 million in total General Fund cuts as they have a $19 billion endowment while MSU's cuts are around $59.7 million with its $4.4 billion endowment.

The rest of the universities basically divide the nearly $300 million cut among themselves. None of the other 13 schools have endowments nearly that big. Western Michigan University's is the third largest with $760.2 million.

However, instead of pouring nearly $1 billion into a huge fund that would give students a $5,500 scholarship for those attending a four-year institution, the H-2 version of the Higher Education budget simply adds the money through a foundation allowance.

Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University would get a 26.3 percent increase in their operations grants. U-M Flint got the smallest allocation at 23.5 percent. The other schools fill in percentages bookended by the other two.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) attributed the cuts to MSU and U of M to two things: cutting back on spending; responding to lawsuits; poor administration; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and more. She said the two schools attract a lot of foreign students and aren't really advocating for Michigan students.

Besides funding changes, HB 4580 includes bans on DEI initiatives and defines "female" and "male" in the case of designating intercollegiate sports teams based on sex.

HB 4579, the community colleges budget, had no changes from the committee-passed version made before voting. In general, the state's 28 community colleges would see their state funding cut by between .8 percent and 1.3 percent.

At about 10:15 p.m., Republican members received a one-pager explaining the Higher Education changes, but it had a mistake and was promptly clawed back.

No floor speeches were allowed and House Democratic Chief Communications Strategist Tracy Wimmer said they had to negotiate for even 15 minutes with the 61-page updated document before the vote.

"This budget is still effed up," Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor) said. "This is the worst budget we've ever seen."

"It is slightly less bad than the budget that was presented to us (yesterday), but it is still a horribly written budget that was basically written on the back of a napkin over the last couple of hours to try and patch together the votes," Morgan said.

Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) called the budget the most partisan, far-right budget his Republican colleagues could come up with, and said it was an attempt to placate a very fringe base in their party.

"Not a single one of my Republican colleagues is even waiting in line to talk to you guys about these changes," Farhat said. "We had an agreement to have speeches on this budget today, and they scrapped the speeches because they were too ashamed to actually talk about their own budget."

Morgan said he recalled Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) saying things would be done differently this term and that members would be given time to read bills.

Bollin said Thursday night shows that leadership listened to its members and "didn't just cram it through."

"We put something out there, garnered more input, it was a transparent process to get more input and this is where we landed," Bollin said.

HB 4580 passed, which has the Secretary of State contact a voter on the Qualified Voter File (QVF) if they haven't voted in 10 years to update their registration.

Michigan's 28 community colleges would see their state funding cut between .8 and 1.3 percent in Fiscal Year 2026 under a House Republican budget that moved out of committee Thursday afternoon with $5.5 million less than what was set aside last year.