To the editor:

I’m seeing lots of older folks my age complaining about the $10,000 in student debt cancellation announced this week.

But when people my age say the government didn’t help pay for their college education, they are highly mistaken. The No. 1 reason that tuitions have gone up much faster than inflation: State subsidies have been dramatically reduced.

When I went to Michigan State back in the day, about 65% of the university’s operating budget came from the state and about 35% from tuition. That’s now flipped. Less than 30% of the state university operating budgets come from the state and about 70% from tuition.

As my good friend Tim Bartik said, when former Gov. John Engler was slashing taxes 25 years ago: “Michigan balances its budget on the backs of college students.”

(Another example of that: When I was a college student, I had a scholarship from the state as a result of relatively high ACT scores. That scholarship covered my MSU tuition. More than 30 years later, when my children were in collect, I noticed that scholarship was still available, but the maximum payout had stayed the same, about $1,500 a year.)

— Julie Mack

EDITOR’S NOTE: Julie Mack is a retired journalist who worked for many years at the Kalamazoo Gazette.