A strong majority of Michigan residents favor state aid to help the fiscally strapped Detroit Public Schools pay off its debts, a new Michigan State University survey says.

In the latest release of State of the State Survey results, 66 percent of Michigan adults surveyed said they favored state financial assistance to the urban school district.

Another 29 percent opposed a state bailout and 5 percent volunteered that they neither favored nor opposed a bailout.

Even when the question was posed two different ways – one with information that a potential bankruptcy could leave state taxpayers liable for $1.5 billion in school district debt and the other without – respondents supported state aid.

“Michigan citizens are surprisingly supportive of using additional state resources to support the Detroit Public Schools, whether or not they know that the state may be on the hook for some of the debt without state action,” said Matt Grossmann, political scientist and director of MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

Read the full news release here.