Land O Links

* The Kalamazoo Promise (which offers college scholarships) is paying dividends: "We find positive effects of the Kalamazoo Promise on Promise eligible students large enough to be deemed important—about a 9 percent increase in the probability of earning any credits and one less suspension day per year. We also find large increases in GPA among African-American students."

* Michigan spends about $120 per capita on mental health services, according to a Governing Magazine database. That places the state no. 21 nationally in such activities. Idaho is dead last in mental health spending, at $36.64 per capita.

* With Detroit staring at an emergency manager or, perhaps even a municipal bankruptcy, it might be useful to check out this map of what various states allow when a local government gets buried in a fiscal hole.

* “This interactive tool by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ economic mobility project displays not only which Americans are more likely to exceed or fall short of the income and wealth held by their parents, but—for the first time—by how much. It provides a unique way to analyze absolute mobility in America and drill down into the specific effects of education level, race, and number of earners present in a household.”

* Two words you don’t often see in news reports about real estate in Michigan: “new ballroom.”

* Why Medicaid matters to you even if you don't rely on it for your own health care: "Medicaid is a joint federal and state funding effort. The federal government matches the funds that each state spends on Medicaid according to the state's federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP). Michigan's FMAP ranged from 63.19% to 66.14% during our audit period. ... DCH's pharmaceutical drug claims totaled $1.7 billion ($0.6 billion General Fund/general purpose) during the period October 1, 2009 through June 30, 2012."

So, every dollar spent by Michigan on Medicaid, $2 come in via the federal government. In other words, Medicaid pumps a huge amount of money into the state’s economy.