Senator Bayer asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Bayer’s statement is as follows:
Senate Bill No. 350 updates the Michigan Promise Zone Authority Act in a way that does not add any additional cost but does help more students actually graduate with higher education degrees and certificates. Michigan promise zones provide scholarships and, actually, they make higher education and certification programs available to students in low income communities. Promise zones are managed by local boards who make the decisions on how the scholarship funds are allocated to the recipients. At this time, the funds can only be used for tuition, fees, books, things like that. It is an amazing program and has helped many people over the years across our state.
The problem is, even with this scholarship, many students in promise zones really struggle to get that graduation—to complete the certification program—because of basic needs that are not met for them such as housing, transportation, child care, health care, and just the cost of paying for a licensure certification—they can’t even do that. So the federal government has helped us, they’ve identified requirements—what it actually does cost to go to college, to get a higher degree of some sort. They call it cost of attendance.
We used that model, that’s used all over the country, all over schools, universities, community colleges, and certification programs in Michigan that do scholarships, use these new categories that we’re trying to add to the promise zones. It’s very appropriate for us to align this scholarship program with all the other scholarship programs. This one serves low income families. The other one serves higher income families. It is very appropriate for us to serve all the families, all the students, with help to get those degrees.
Senate Bill No. 350 identifies those costs. We can do this without increasing any of our costs as a state, and it does boost those students from low income communities to the same categories, the same ability to get that enhanced degree, enhanced certificate certification programs. I thank you for the time listening.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 555, entitled
A bill to amend 2008 PA 549, entitled “Michigan promise zone authority act,” by amending sections 5, 7, and 11 (MCL 390.1665, 390.1667, and 390.1671), as amended by 2016 PA 9.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: