University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks, who’s stepping down from the post later this year, used his final State of the University speech to warn that further state cuts to the system will cause great harm.

He had good things to say, too, notes MPR, as he praised the university for raising graduation rates, increasing scholarships for needy students and for cutting budgets and controlling spending in tough economic times.

But he decried the possibility of deep cuts at the Legislature — which some say are needed to resolve the budget deficit.

“We are approaching a tipping point at the University of Minnesota,” he said. “A tipping point at which disinvesting in the university will diminish academic quality and academic productivity.”

And with the state budget problems in mind, he called for new ways to improve the university:

“I doubt that we will return to the halcyon days of increasing state funding, so we must continue to increase private scholarship support, reduce our costs and invent new possibilities,” he said.

And, said the Minnesota Daily, he talked of the university’s goals:

“We must remind ourselves, and the people of Minnesota, that we are driven by that same hope — by our aspirations to be something greater than we are today,” he said. “We should take great pride in our efforts to set high expectations and seek that bright horizon each and every day.”

Bruininks will return to the U of M faculty this summer when Eric Kaler takes over as the institution’s 16th president.