Michigan’s 2009-10 budget was finally approved by the state senate and signed into law by Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Friday, Oct. 30, and Oakland University got what it expected in funding from the state, minus some funding for scholarships.

“We knew what we were gonna get from day one for higher education,” said Rochelle Black, OU’s vice president for government relations.

The state budget allocated about $1.5 billion for spending in higher education a 0.4 percent decrease from last year. An additional $68 million is to be allocated to it from the federal stimulus bill.

OU is to get $50.7 million from the state, and $1.5 million from the stimulus package, overall $52.2 million.

OU predicted it would get $51.7 million total. The $50.7 million in state appropriations — taxpayer money the state gives toward the budget — was as estimated, but it ended up getting about $0.4 million more from the stimulus bill.

Black said “we should be grateful for” the maintenance of effort provisions clause in the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which is part of the government stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

She said this clause said that appropriations awarded to OU and other state universities will still be granted because federal stimulus money will hold steady.

“This is unless (Granholm) filed for a waiver, which she didn’t,” Black said. “We dodged a bullet … temporarily.”

Next year the state won’t have the stimulus money to fall back on, so she thinks it’ll be harder for public universities. She said that relative to some institutions, public universities did pretty well this year.

Michigan will provide $84.5 million for student financial aid this year, a 61 percent cut from last year.

State competitive scholarships was decreased by $17.9 million.

Cindy Hermsen, director of financial aid at OU, said OU students can expect to receive approximately $370,000 in funding for the Michigan Competitive Scholarship.

Several scholarships and grants were cut altogether, including the Michigan Promise Grant, nursing scholarships, Michigan Work-Study Program, Part-Time Independent Student Program and Michigan Education Opportunity Grants.

“Last year over 12,000 OU students received over $100 million in financial aid funds from OU, federal, state and external sources. This year I expect about 13,500 OU students will receive about $115 million,” Hermsen said.

“I am particularly disappointed that the bill includes no funding for the Michigan Promise scholarships, and I strongly encourage the Legislature to get to work on finding the resources to keep this commitment to our students,” Granholm said in a press release Friday. “We must keep the promise.”

Students from several public universities, including OU, tried to call legislators to ask them to fund, not cut Promise, but this was unsuccessful.

Liz Boyd, Granholm’s spokesperson, said it wasn’t too late to find some sources of revenue — which usually means increased taxes — to fund Promise.

Black said this isn’t likely to happen.

“Truth is, people don’t want their taxes raised,” she said, adding, “I don’t hear about how many jobs would have been lost for trying to keep the Promise scholarship.”

Saman Waquad, vice president for OU student congress, said OUSC is not currently doing anything to revive Promise, but will join in if there’s a movement in the future.

Hermsen said OU increased its student financial aid to help students with extenuating financial circumstances afford to go to OU.

“It’s difficult to watch students struggle financially at a time when a college education is one of the answers to improving the economy,” she said. “Although I’m very disappointed with the loss of state financial aid programs, OU has made a tremendous financial commitment to support OU financial aid programs.”