Michigan universities are considered a fourth branch of government, with separation of powers

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote a book on the issues faced today by the higher education sector.  Supporting independent inquiry in the face of ideology is very difficult, and universities bear the brunt of this.

In the 1960s, with student activism rising significantly on college campuses, plenty of state governors and legislatures, starting with Ronald Reagan in California ("Ronald Reagan launched political career using the Berkeley campus as a target"), aimed to put a stop to it in various ways.  

That's when state appropriations to colleges and universities started to decline, leading to a significant increase in tuition costs.

So the Republican focus on colleges and universities these days:

• Scott Walker tried to end tenure in Wisconsin when he was governor ("Walker erodes college professor tenure," Politico)
• Governor Mitch Daniels becoming president of Purdue University ("How Mitch Daniels Made Purdue a University Conservatives Can Love," Chronicle of Higher Education)
• during covid's peak, the Utah State Legislature forbade colleges from imposing vaccine mandates
  
• various initiatives by Ron DeSantis in Florida including forbidding professors to testify against the state
• surveys of student and faculty political opinion
• greasing the process to appoint Ben Sasse president of the University of Florida
• and now a conservative takeover of New College ("Inside the small liberal arts college that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to take over," Los Angeles Times, "Why Ron DeSantis wants to trample the dreams of about 700 college kids on his White House path," Philadelphia Inquirer) a very small independent but state funded liberal arts college with a progressive bent

Isn't new.

Michigan colleges have an independence most other public schools do not. It does remind me of one advantage that universities have in Michigan.  They are considered a fourth branch of government, with separation of powers, so they aren't subject to the same levels of interference that happen in other states ("Explaining Michigan’s one-of-a-kind university governance model").  Some of these provisions date to 1850, and are unique in the United States.

That doesn't mean there still isn't interference and the ability to influence colleges.  Most of the boards of the state funded colleges are still appointed by the Governor--Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State, the trustees are elected on a state-wide ballot--and the Legislature still appropriates some monies to the schools, and that can be used to shape outcomes in nefarious ways.

But there's more independence.  The kinds of actions taken by Walker or DeSantis couldn't really happen to Michigan colleges.  Although I suppose a Governor could try to take over a college, by firing all the trustees and appointing hacks, but it would be really hard.