UMich president calls bullshit on Time Mag report. U-M is NOT going private!

[Bozita]

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090428/SCHOOLS/904280414/1361/U-M+president+refutes+report+that+university+will+go+private

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
U-M president refutes report that university will go private
Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News


University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman wants to set the record straight: U-M has no plans to become a private university.

Coleman was surprised by an "incorrect" report in Time Magazine that suggested U-M is being forced to privatize due to budget pressures from the state.

"No such discussions are under way, nor are they being considered," Coleman wrote in a letter to Time, refuting the April 23 article.

In 2008, a state commission work group charged with suggesting ways to cut government spending floated a proposal to eliminate U-M's $326 million state appropriations. But even the head of the work group acknowledged the idea was unlikely, and it didn't gain traction in Lansing.

But the recent Time article reported that this year's graduating class will "walk away from the University of Michigan with a top-notch education, but also the distinction of possibly being one of the last graduating classes of a genuinely public institution."

Cynthia Wilbanks, U-M's vice president for government relations, stressed again this week -- as she did when the proposal first surfaced -- that no serious discussion has taken place to privatize the university.

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