It is troubling that, three years after her election, Gov. Jennifer Granholm still lacks a firm grasp on the concept of cause and effect — repeatedly slashing state funding does indeed force universities to raise tuition rates. Should the state Legislature follow Granholm’s budget recommendation, the past three years will have brought nearly $50 million in cuts to the University’s state appropriations. Faced with a choice between sacrificing the quality of education and raising tuition rates, the University’s Board of Regents unanimously approved a 12.3-percent in-state tuition increase Thursday. Rather than understanding that the increase was a necessary response to recurring cuts in state funding, Granholm reacted to the announcement with harsh criticism and naïvely called on universities statewide to maintain tuition increases at the rate of inflation. Whether her position is motivated by genuine incompetence or political posturing, it is counterproductive to the goal of garnering public support for greater investment in higher education.

Just as the University has not been alone in enduring heavy cuts in state funding, it is not the only university in the state to announce staggering tuition increases. So far, all state universities have approved increases above 7 percent for the coming year, and Central Michigan University topped the list, raising tuition by 19 percent for new students. Granholm rightly wants to double the number of college graduates in Michigan, but it is difficult to imagine how this will be possible with continual funding cuts that leave universities scrambling to make ends meet.

Granholm called the recent tuition increases “unacceptably high,” and critics have expressed fears that the higher prices will make higher education less accessible to students. This concern may be somewhat overblown, given that this year the University is increasing its financial aid budget by 14.5 percent and expanding need-based grant aid to in-state students by more than 28 percent. As University Provost Paul Courant said, the policy of using tuition increases to boost financial aid has “some of the same flavor of a progressive tax system,” and if all goes according to plan, families earning the median income and under would not be harmed by the tuition increases.

Like the boss who blames employees for her own mistakes, Granholm is overlooking her influence on the massive state appropriations cuts that have strangled higher education budgets in Michigan. Either she genuinely fails to recognize her own role in the statewide tuition increases, or she is deceptively trying to shift the blame from the state government to the universities’ administrations. After Granholm fleeced the universities last March by breaking a promise to protect them from further cuts, administrators have little reason to listen to her suggestions. And in the wake of nearly $80 million in internal budget cuts over the past three years, further reductions may not be an option. Even the fiscally conservative Republican regents voted in favor of the tuition increases, understanding that the University is out of breathing room if it plans to preserve its reputation and quality.

The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News have backed Granholm’s shameless posturing in recent editorials, citing the $11 million earmarked for new initiatives like the Detroit Center as unnecessary in times of such serious financial difficulties. But they fail to recognize that should the University throw itself into financial lockdown in order to cut costs, it will fall behind its competitors — most of which are raising tuition at a higher rate than the University is — and risk losing the best faculty and students to private and elite public universities that are willing to invest in innovation and new initiatives. If the state hopes to attract new industries and double its number of college graduates over the next decade, it cannot afford to let its best university drop out of competition with the likes of Northwestern, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania.