This sounds like another administration we all know, doesn’t it?

Ross Jones of WXYZ reports.

While tuition rises, some Michigan State University officials spend lavishly with university money

This story is about green and white.

Not the colors Michigan State students cheer for on Saturdays, but the scarce dollars school officials are spending at the same time tuition is rising.

Deep cuts have led MSU to raise tuition nearly 20% since 2010, forcing students like Mike Havern to work two-jobs. The third oldest of 11 children, his parents can’t afford to help him pay for college.

“I have to make sacrifices for sure, I don’t really have another option,” he told 7 Action News. “If I’m not working, I won’t be able to pay the bills”.

But as students have tightened their belts over the last year, school officials have spent hundreds of thousands of school dollars on travel, entertainment and meals.

When trustees want to take in a football or basketball game, they need only ask. Over the last year, they’ve been asking a lot: spending over $68,000 in public money to attend Spartan athletic events.

A school official says MSU encourages trustees to cash-in on the tickets, saying there are “typically donor and alumni sessions” to attend, and “the presence of Trustees…is important.”

But for trustees not into sports, the Wharton Center for Performing Arts has tickets they’d probably be interested in. Over the course of about a year, they’ve taken in more than $24,000 worth, and no one grabbed more than multi-millionaire developer and trustee Joel Ferguson. He took in at least 19 shows, including Wicked, Carrie Underwood and Jerry Seinfeld.

Ferguson wouldn’t talk to us at last week’s board meeting about his ticket use, but a spokesman said trustees are encouraged to attend the shows because potential donors are often there.

The money to pay for tickets—and all the expenses we’re talking about—doesn’t come from tuition dollars, but from other public money in university investment accounts.

Perhaps no one had a better time spending the school’s money than trustee Faylene Owen. When the MSU basketball team traveled to Germany last season, Owen made the trip, too. Flying business class, her ticket cost $5,698.

But no one likes to fly alone, so Owen brought her husband Larry along. MSU paid for his trip.