Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s plan to stop using school aid fund dollars for higher education could hit a roadblock.
The state has been using money from the School Aid Fund toward higher education for years now. And Governor Whitmer says that needs to stop. That’s because the School Aid Fund, historically, is meant to be for kindergarten through twelfth grade.
But Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey is not on board. Here’s his spokeswoman Amber McCann:
“Education is a lifelong pursuit and so to remove that from School Aid suggests that maybe we think of education differently in Michigan than as the Majority Leader does.”
A report released last August found that Michigan had shifted more than $4 billion from the School Aid Fund to universities and community colleges since 2010.
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—Cheyna Roth is a reporter for the Michigan Public Radio network. Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org