Our 10 Ideas piece stems from a larger policy piece that we worked on during the year. Our initial policy consisted of two proposals: the first is a policy that says the state should increase higher education funding for universities by 2% for every 1% universities decreases tuition; the second policy is a tax credit to relieve student debt in exchange for graduates remaining in the state. We have taken the larger policy piece to state legislators in Lansing on two lobbying trips.
Representative Joan Bauer expressed strong interest in our plan and has given the policy to the house fiscal analyst, and she is also currently working to draft legislation based on our policy. With the current political climate, our next steps will be to find other avenues to attract attention and support for our policy.
We are measuring our impact based on the people who are supporting our policy. For example, we feel that we are making an impact if a state representative is willing to take our policy to the house fiscal analyst and then to work on drafting legislation for our policy. In the future, we believe that getting the support from the Business Leaders for Michigan will be an important step. Our success will come when enough external support and pressure allows for our policy's programs to become law.
We hope to work with College Democrats, Representative Joan Bauer, Business Leaders for Michigan, Roosevelt Institute (MSU) to put this idea to work.
