INDIANAPOLIS —
Indiana higher-education policy makers are getting ready to adopt an aggressive college-completion plan that will push the state’s colleges and universities to reel in their rising costs and dramatically improve their graduation rates.
The plan sets the goal of increasing the percent of Hoosiers with post-secondary degrees to 60 percent by 2025 — nearly doubling the current rate.
To get there, the plan calls for the state’s universities to set specific targets for graduating students on time, decreasing the student debt load, and accelerating degree programs that match the state’s workforce needs.
Some university presidents are already balking at the plan’s goal and directives which are set to be adopted by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. But Teresa Lubbers, who heads the commission, said the plan is needed to pull Indiana up to where it needs to be to fill a void in the state’s human capital.
“We are digging ourselves out of very big hole,” Lubbers told a group of university officials who saw a preview of the plan Tuesday. “We need aggressive goals.”
Driving the plan are some dismal numbers: Indiana ranks 42nd in the nation for college graduates and third in the nation for student loan defaults. Meanwhile, the state’s four-year universities graduate less than one-third of their students on time, but have increased their tuition and fees by more than 100 percent over the past decade.
Indiana’s low college-graduation rate puts Indiana in peril; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than half the job vacancies by 2018 will require someone with a college degree or other post-secondary credentials.
The plan to reverse that course, dubbed “Reaching Higher, Achieving More,” offers some specific remedies to counter those numbers.
For example, the plan calls on universities to set annual targets for improving the cost-per-degree ratio at their campuses; to streamline some four-year degrees into three-year degrees; and to publicly release information on their graduates’ job placement rates and earnings.
Lubbers previewed the plan at a meeting of the Indiana College Completion Council, a new organization made up of the state’s public, private, and for-profit universities and colleges.
While some council members, including Indiana State University President Dan Bradley, questioned whether the 60 percent college-degree rate was attainable by 2025, other university presidents seemed to question the premise on which the plan was built.
University of Southern Indiana President Linda Bennett said USI students don’t see graduating on time as a priority.
Ball State University President Jo Ann Gora said she didn’t think it was “appropriate” for the state’s universities to push their students to pursue math and science degrees that are already in high demand in the workplace. She also said she wanted to the commission to do more to convince parents that Indiana’s average student debt load of $27,000 isn’t exorbitant.
Other university officials at the meeting blamed the state’s K-12 schools, saying students were coming to college ill-prepared to do the work.
The plan is prescriptive but with limited clout. The Commission for Higher Education can’t force the state’s universities to adopt the plan’s goals. But the commission does recommend funding levels for the state’s public universities, and the state legislature has adopted a funding formula that ties some higher-education dollars to meeting the commission’s goals.
Breaking News
Related Photos
-
Soon-to-be graduates walk into the rec center during a breezy Sunday afternoon for the Goshen College commencement ceremony last year. JUSTIN CRIPE | The Goshen News
Plan targets college completion
- Breaking News
-
-
Westview art winners announced
Westview Junior-Senior High School art show winners were honored May 13. They include:
-
Goshen police investigating a possible shooting
Goshen police are at the scene of a possible shooting that took place along College Manor Drive.
-
BOARD OF WORKS: New brush pick-up schedule announced
Goshen Board of Public Works and Safety officials Monday received notification of new brush pickup times that should make it less confusing for city residents to utilize the free service.
-
Catholic dioceses, Notre Dame sue over Obama mandate
Roman Catholic leaders opened a new front against the Obama administration mandate that employers provide workers birth control coverage, filing federal lawsuits Monday on behalf of dioceses, schools and health care agencies that argued the requirement violates religious freedom. Among the plaintiffs is the University of Notre Dame.
-
Goshen Middle School students get a look at their future lives
GOSHEN — For the past nine years, Goshen Middle School has hosted a simulation event for its eighth-graders called “It’s Your Life.”
-
Honey's Frozen Yogurt opens in Linway Plaza
The Bible references a land “flowing with milk and honey.” Another place similar to that is now open in Goshen.
-
Series of local high school graduations begin Friday
After 13 years of schooling, thousands of local high school seniors will be receiving their diplomas in the coming two weeks.
-
West Goshen Elementary leading way in early reading intervention
At the kindergarten round-up this spring at West Goshen Elementary School, teachers and administrators noticed something different: There seemed to be significantly more Hispanic children with parents who spoke both English and Spanish.
-
Fire burns siding on Goshen mobile home
Goshen firefighers responded to a blaze Sunday that burned siding on a mobile home at the Twin Pines Mobile Home Park.
-
Goshen Middle School students get a look at their future lives
For the past nine years, Goshen Middle School has hosted a simulation event for its eighth-graders called “It’s Your Life.”
- More Breaking News Headlines
-
US Airways: Diverted Flight Has 'Landed Safely'
A Few Odd Business Sparks but Europe Gloomy
Revived Focus on Regulation After JPMorgan Loss
Gerard Butler: the Good, the Bad and the Cannes
At Least 25 Dead in India Train Collision
Raw Video: Private Rocket Blasts Off
Boy to Rescuers: 'Do You Have a Plan?'
Doctors and Devotees Debate Barefoot Running
Blacks Seek to Find Their Own Missing
Houston Museum Unveils $85 Million Dinosaur Hall
Chicago Police: 90 Arrested in NATO Protests
Ex-Rutgers Student Gets 30 Days in Webcam Case
Obama Sees Inspiration in Joplin Graduates
Raw Video: Man Saved After Niagara Falls Plunge
NATO: Afghan Exit 'Irreversible'
Catholic Groups Sue Over Contraception Mandate
4 Arrested After Man's Beating at Dodger Stadium
Investors Slap Facebook 11 Percent Lower
Raw Video: Dramatic 270-Foot Waterfall Rescue
Fingers Do the Fighting at Wrestling Tourney
