The Susan Martin era at EMU has begun! Tuition increase of 7.7% on the way

Sure it wasn't her making the entire call, but it does come as the first thing most people have noticed at EMU since she's been there (unless you mean the parade she supposedly ditched that some are grumbling about).

Here's an amazing stat about this 7.7% increase, Regent Roy Wilbanks says 6.8% of it will not be going to update classrooms, not going to update computer labs, not going to update dorms, not going to update internal computer systems---nope, almost ALL the increase will be going to cover salaries. Students will be paying an average of $579 for the privilege of paying higher salaries to EMU employees.

0.9% will go to building improvements. 0.9%.

Student housing costs will also increase 5.1%.

PFFFFFFT. All the good PR, all the street signs, all the radio ads, all the promotion of 'Education First' kinda sorta just flopped. Not a lot of EMU students jumping up and down today saying "Oh boy, I can't wait to get back to Ypsilanti and Eastern Michigan".

We're sure the financial aid office will now work overtime to help students cover the increase in costs and make sure they are covered by the time school starts. Yep there's more money in the financial aid pool this year for all students to draw from, and no doubt a bunch of new requests after reading this article. Seeing as how the Financial Aid Department at EMU is the deepest pit in hell on the campus, and has been for some 25 years running, we fear for the students who need more right now.

It's not going to be a pretty August around EMU.

Eastern Michigan in the FINAL FOUR! Well for the new University President search anyway

That's right, Eastern has named the FOUR finalists for new University President:

*Kenneth Burnley, senior resident fellow and director of the Education Leadership Center at the University of Michigan's School of Education.

*Michael Flanagan, Michigan's superintendent of public instruction.

*Susan Martin, a provost and vice chancellor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

*Donald Shelton, a Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge and former EMU regent.

They will be looking to improve upon the abysmal performance of EMU's last two Presidents, John Fallon and Samuel Kirkpatrick which shouldn't be exceptionally hard to do.

The Ann Arbor News has MORE, yes even color pictures