This article originally appeared in the Detroit News July 13, 2023.

There are efforts underway in Michigan to prematurely expand Michigan Reconnect, a taxpayer-funded college scholarship program that is ripe for abuse.

Under the program, state residents who have not obtained a college degree can take community college classes without paying tuition. The program used to be limited to people 25 and over, but lawmakers recently appropriated federal funds in the FY23-24 state budget to make it open to those 21 and older.

Reconnect students must be enrolled in six credit hours and maintain a 2.0 GPA to remain eligible, but there are no requirements to take classes that teach meaningful skills. This means taxpayers could foot the bill for even more adults to take classes like ice carving, offered at Henry Ford community college, and intermediate bowling, offered at both Henry Ford and Lake Michigan colleges. They can also enjoy classes on pocket billiards at Muskegon community college, wine appreciation at Macomb and world cinema at the Lansing college.

Even though about 8% of students graduated within the first year of the program, according to the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, their report tells us that most students are taking the full four allowable years to take classes whether or not they end up completing a degree.

A 2022 law imposed a weak form of accountability on community colleges to “facilitate maximum four-year completion rates” for Reconnect students. The state warned colleges that if they didn’t graduate Reconnect students at about the same rate as their other students, they’d have to use their other state-appropriated dollars to pay for 10% of the Reconnect students’ tuition.

The Michigan Senate is now considering a bill to strike that penalty from the law while also making even younger people eligible for the funds.

Stripping the program of even the lightest tap on the wrist for schools that don’t graduate students is an insult to taxpayers.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Michigan Reconnect students are on their way to “high-demand, high-wage careers.” Because the state is not collecting any data about the kind of jobs Reconnect graduates are getting, it’s hard to know if that information is true.

Yet state officials seem bent on expanding the no-strings-attached scholarships, heedless of the lackluster results to date for both beneficiaries and taxpayers.

The Reconnect program should, at the least, be reformed in some modest ways. Colleges should be required to report information about students’ chosen majors to the state, which would help ensure that students are not abusing the scholarship funds. Another sensible reform is to track what types of jobs scholarship recipients are getting after graduation.

Taxpayers want lawmakers to use state funds responsibly. This would be a good start.

The state would do even better to shift its focus. Stop handing out checks for people to attend community college with no accountability. Create systems that encourage colleges to keep tuition low and do more to improve graduation rates.

No-strings-attached scholarships mean students don’t have to think about the cost of attending college.

Lawmakers should allow time to assess the effectiveness of the Reconnect program instead of rushing to expand the program at this early stage.

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