University students across Michigan, including Oakland University students, are trying to save the Michigan Promise Grant college scholarship.

The Promise Scholarship was cut from Michigan’s interim budget passed by the Michigan State Congress on Oct. 1.

The interim budget says that about 96,000 students who were promised up to $4,000 from the state government after having completed two years of higher education, would not get the grant.

But this interim budget is only valid until Oct. 31, and while Michigan legislators are working on the actual budget for 2009-10.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said she will not sign any budget that doesn’t fund the Promise scholarship.

She also said that she can use the line-item veto to move funding from one program in a proposed budget bill to fund another program. She said her priorities are education, police and fire, and jobs.

“The governor is prepared to use the veto pen,” said Liz Boyd, a spokesperson for the governor.

OU was cautious, and did not give its students the Promise Grant’s money to calculate into tuition payments, and said it would not do so until it actually received the funds from the government.

The Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday, Oct. 6 that funded the Promise scholarship, which costs about $140 million.

The house bill funded the scholarship by revenue generated by increasing taxes on some things like non-cigarette tobacco products and reducing some personal tax exemptions.

But the bill would also have to be passed in the Senate, and then signed by the governor.

On Monday and Tuesday Oct. 5-6, students across Michigan called their representatives to express their support for Promise and to try to persuade them to vote to fund the Promise.

Some student leaders credit student involvement with getting it passed in the house. They also organized mass call-ins to the state senators on Monday and Tuesday Oct. 12-13 to try to get it passed in the Senate.

“Student activity kept it alive,” said Jordan Twardy, an OU undergraduate alum now pursuing a masters in urban farming in University of Michigan. “The last fight is the Senate.”

 

Twardy is the president of Student Association of Michigan, an advocacy group consisting of members of student congresses of public universities in Michigan.

 

He said Central Michigan University’s students got the ball rolling in this effort, and SAM has been coordinating with students from other public universities to organize a state-wide effort to save the Promise scholarship.

 

Amy Ring, legislative affairs director of OU Student Congress, said that hundreds of OU students called last week, and that she herself knew of at least 50, and that overall they were effective.

 

She said there was no way of knowing how many students called in altogether.

 

OUSC has not taken an official stance in the Promise scholarship, but has been using their resources to get it passed in the budget.

 

Saman Waquad, OUSC vice president, said she thought the campaign went “pretty decently,” but couldn’t estimate how many students called their legislators.

 

Ring also said she didn’t want to downplay the importance of other things in the state budget.

 

Ring said that, although the Promise scholarship may not be her number one priority, with her position in the student congress, her job is to support the students.

 

“Higher education is especially important,” she said. “We need to encourage them (students) to go, and this (Promise) will make it easier.”

 

– Contributing reporter Tiffany Wolfe contributed to this report