What is a public university?

We all know the University of Michigan (UM) is a public or "state" university.  It’s interesting therefore to note that from its founding in 1817 the UM received no funding from the State of Michigan until 1867.  We operated for 50 years as a public university using student fees and revenues from the sale of a federal land grant.   Yet from the 1851 state constitution on, the UM has been governed by a Board of Regents directly elected by the people of the state.  So we are clearly an institution with a mission and responsibility directed towards the people of Michigan, but the state was 30 years old before the UM received state public funding.

Now public universities in the State of Michigan are facing yet another in a long string of reductions in state financial support.  If the new governor’s budget plans go forward, when all the dust settles the University of Michigan will face a 15% reduction in state support, a loss of about $47 million.  The level of state support at the UM is already a small fraction of the total – the state provides only about 20% of the general fund of the university, and by the time this filters down to the College of Engineering we receive only about 10% of our budget from state funds.   So, many ask, are we really a public university?

I think the question misunderstands what it means to be a public, or state, university.  Don’t misunderstand me: I think the State of Michigan should, indeed must, support the UM and the other public universities of the state.  Like all universities we provide a vital public good, and as befits our public mission we give preferences to residents of the state --- preferences in admissions, in financial aid, and in tuition.  But we should not define our public mission in terms of revenue sources.

A public university makes a commitment to access.  This is why state schools are large; no private school has our scale and scope.  Scale is a direct consequence of our commitment to access; throughout its history the UM has grown so as to provide that “uncommon education for the common man” to an ever-widening population.  And we have grown in the scope of disciplines we offer too – spanning the liberal arts and fine arts, professional programs in engineering, nursing, business, law, and more.   A private school would have gone a different route, because their mission does not demand scope or scale.

A public university must also provide educational opportunity that is, as far as possible, independent of previous advantages for disadvantages.   In the US today there are significant differences in higher education opportunity for students from different communities.  These differences are due to differential K12 school resources, both financial and human, and are due also to cultural causes, especially around the ability of communities and parents to prepare their children for college through a knowledge of college preparation expectations, college education benefits, and financial aid systems.

All public universities must accept the responsibility to make a positive impact on the world.  We do this first through the students that we graduate, well prepared to be contributors to society in all the many dimensions through which every person should contribute – as citizens, as caregivers, as economic actors.  But as a public research university the UM takes on an additional responsibility to the public: to make positive impact through the knowledge that we create.  The UM is a pre-Morrill act land grant school, and indeed helped to create the mold of the public research university, but the purposes of the Morrill act for the promotion of a “liberal and practical education” describe our own goals well, and extend to our scholarship.  We must aspire to practical impact -- economic impact, policy impact, aesthetic impact -- that is for the good of the state and the wider society.

With all these responsibilities we accept that the work we do must be for the public good. These aspirations are not about funding sources, or a trade of support for services.  These aspirations are about accepting a principled mission.   We will continue to provide an uncommon educational opportunity for the citizenry of Michigan. We commit that the intellectual results we generate and the alumni we graduate will have positive impact on the public, if not today then in some tomorrow that we do not yet conceive. And as a public university we make these commitments not because the state funds us, but because it is an important mission for humanity.