In a letter to the editor, Jack McHugh, legislative analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, takes exception to a previous commentator who calls the center's idea for tying state university aid to student counts "radical" and contends that it would force research universities to curtail science and technology programs. McHugh writes that research universities "would almost certainly continue to receive state funding for the research that they are so well-qualified to do." He cites "respected political analyst Bill Ballenger," who called the proposal "rational" and said it could create an "incentive for a school to cut spending."