Last month the governor cut almost $1 billion from the state’s new budget through 147 line-item vetoes and $600 million more from priorities through a rare administrative transfer process.

These cuts are starting to have an impact, as Michigan schools have missed scheduled payments, sheriff departments are planning layoffs, foster care programs are preparing to shut down, and college students are being denied scholarships mid-semester, to name a few.

As chairwoman of the Senate’s Universities and Community Colleges Appropriations Subcommittee, I am hearing firsthand accounts of the impact the governor’s cut to the Michigan Tuition Grant program, a need-based scholarship, is having on college students and families in southwest Michigan.

Locally, the governor’s veto immediately hit 102 Andrews University students, leaving them each $2,400 short for the academic year. Statewide, 16,983 students — including more than 6,000 first-generation college attendees — and more than 200 military veterans will be affected by the cut to the tuition grant program.

This is unfortunate, for one, because the governor’s initial budget proposal included funding for this grant program. But it is also unfortunate because of the long-term financial and economic implications this may have.

Thousands of college students may need to take on student loan debt without the grant program or may even be forced to leave school. Graduates with student loan debt will be spending more of their wages to pay it off, rather than reinvesting their earnings in our economy. Similarly, those who make the tough decision to leave college without this financial assistance may end up in lower-paying careers that limit their long-term earning potential.

I support efforts to make state government more efficient and fiscally responsible, but the governor’s funding cuts from important and effective programs and services that keep Michigan competitive, like the Michigan Tuition Grant program, are only hurting people.

I am hopeful the governor will reverse the administrative transfers she made, and I stand ready to work together on a budget supplemental bill that will restore funding to the Michigan Tuition Grant program, the Jobs for Michigan Graduates program, and so many others that were impacted by the governor’s vetoes.

This is a problem that can only be fixed by working together, which is what I believe you, the people of Michigan, hired us to do.