{"content":[{"text":"Summary of Review","bbox":{"left":0.422451,"top":0.089182,"width":0.16995700000000002,"height":0.020985000000000004}},{"text":"The findings and conclusions of a new policy brief from the Mackinac Center for Pub- \n lic Policy are poorly grounded and misleading. The report, entitled “Michigan Higher Edu- \n cation: Facts and Fiction,” does raise a number of important issues concerning the financ- \n ing of public universities, but the study is firmly rooted in a strong, ideologically based \n conceptual framework. Rather than explore how universities have been affected by or re- \n sponded to state cutbacks and how this resulting behavior affects state economic growth, \n the report seeks to confirm the authors’ belief that there should be less government in- \n volvement in the funding of public universities. The authors narrowly focus on benefits \n from higher education that accrue to individual students, despite considerable empirical re- \n search from other scholars showing societal benefits. The report’s attempt to model the re- \n lationship between state spending on public higher education and that state’s economic \n growth suffers from these and other flaws. In short, the authors grossly overstate their find- \n ings and policy-makers should view with great caution the conclusions drawn and policy \n recommendation to reduce state funding for public universities.","bbox":{"left":0.147059,"top":0.123742,"width":0.7207140000000001,"height":0.24672699999999997}},{"text":"Page 2 of 13","bbox":{"left":0.798529,"top":0.935106,"width":0.09855399999999992,"height":0.020212000000000008}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}