By Mitch Daniels
TheStatehouseFile.com

The once serene and secure world of higher education has been shaken in recent years by challenges few saw coming. Enrollments have dropped, layoffs have become common, and a few colleges have closed down entirely. There has been a stunning drop, from 75 percent to 44 percent, in Americans saying that “a college degree is very important.”

A barrage of unprecedented questions now is asked every day: Are too many young people going to college? Are they learning anything meaningful or useful while there, or just enjoying a four-year party of prolonged adolescence? Can as good an education be delivered more conveniently through the new technologies of the internet? And loudest of all, the question, “Why does it cost so much?”

Some leaders of higher ed have reacted defensively and critically, disputing the premises of these critiques and perhaps believing that this storm will all blow over soon. At Purdue University, we take a different view: We accept the legitimacy of the concerns now so prevalent, and the responsibility to provide education of indubitable quality, at a price our students’ families can afford. As we phrase it, “Higher Education at the Highest Proven Value.”

First, ours is a place of rigor. As Indiana’s most STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) centered university, we teach a lot of very difficult subjects. Whereas the phenomenon labeled “grade inflation” has seen average grades skyrocket across the country, until employers and graduate schools are in some cases unsure what a high GPA means anymore, As and Bs are still hard to come by at Purdue, where the mean GPA has barely moved for decades.

We accept the challenge to deliver quality that cannot be acquired simply sitting in one’s living room in front of a laptop. Boilermakers are much more likely than students elsewhere to be involved in undergraduate research, to work on team-based projects in addition to conventional homework, to study abroad or in off-campus internships as part of their experience. They are far more likely to encounter “active learning” courses taught in new ways. Increasingly, lectures are watched on personal computers or handheld devices, with class time devoted to projects, exercises, or individual instruction aimed at those aspects the student found most difficult.

And we don’t ask people to take our word for it. In partnership with the world-renowned Gallup Research organization, we launched the Gallup-Purdue Index, the largest-ever survey of how college graduates are succeeding in life, and why. We simultaneously studied Purdue alumni, and now can prove what we already suspected: Boilermakers do better in later life, not just financially but also in other, as Gallup terms them, “domains of wellbeing.” But the data also pointed to ways, like more one-to-one mentoring by our faculty, where we can do better, and we are determined to apply those lessons.

Our commitment to accountability will next extend to measuring the intellectual progress of students while they are at our university. Starting next fall, we will check the growth in critical thinking of our students, again with an eye to constant improvement.

We are investing heavily in building even further the disciplines on which Indiana’s economic future so greatly depends. Our College of Engineering, already one of the top-ranked in the world, will grow by another 1000 students. Our Department of Computer Science, which was the first of its kind in the world and just marked its 50th anniversary, will grow by almost 30%. And our College of Technology is working to transform itself into a new Purdue Polytechnic Institute, producing 21st Century degrees such as robotics, sensors and embedded devices, cloud computing, and unmanned aerial systems. The PPI will employ innovative methods such as a heavily project-based curriculum, regular work-study internships, and a competency-based system in which students will move as fast as their demonstrated mastery permits, instead of on the traditional semester-by-semester calendar.

Another way we seek to deliver proven value to our fellow taxpayers is by more often and successfully converting Purdue research into things of value in the marketplace. We have totally restructured our policies and practices to remove any possible obstacles, and to support to the maximum extent possible, those of our brilliant faculty who wish to commercialize their discoveries, and it’s working: 2014 saw a record number of patents and licenses, and 24 new Indiana companies, twice the all-time record and four times the Big Ten average. Purdue was named the international Best Incubator Network of the Year.

Lastly, that matter of cost. Citizen concern on this count is well-founded. Nothing, not even health care costs, has risen so rapidly as the cost of higher education. Schools everywhere have raised tuition and other charges at almost three times the rate of general inflation. Student debt, which helps fuel and mask this increase, skyrocketed past a trillion dollars.

Purdue was not by far the worst offender, but we did participate in this escalation, with both tuition and room and board costs going up every year for decades. We broke from this pattern in 2013, by freezing tuition and cutting food costs 5%. We followed this up with a second 5% reduction, and two more years of frozen tuition. Total cost of attendance has dropped for two straight years, the first time on record, and student debt is down 18%, or some $40 million.

When Abe Lincoln and his allies created land grant colleges like Purdue, their goal was to expand knowledge in those areas of learning most directly contributing to the economic growth of the nation, and to throw open the doors of higher education beyond the wealthy elite, to young people of all incomes and backgrounds. At Purdue, we believe passionately in the nobility of that continuing mission, and in our duty to respond effectively to the concern of students, parents, and taxpayers.

America is home to the world’s finest higher education system, and it’s essential that it stay that way. We Boilermakers hope to do our part in forging the changes that will preserve and strengthen that system, by providing what so many are now rightly demanding: Higher Education at the Highest Proven Value.

Mitch Daniels is president of Purdue University and a former Indiana governor.

By Lesley Weidenbener
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Republicans are talking big about boosting state funding for public schools over the next two years, but it’s not clear yet whether the cash will be available to make that happen.

Already, House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, has said that his caucus wants to provide a larger overall increase for schools than the 2 percent boost they received in Fiscal Year 2014 and the 1 percent increase they’re receiving this year.

Analysis button in JPGHe also wants to shift the way that money is distributed among districts. But he said those changes can be mitigated if there’s more money put into education overall.

Republican Gov. Mike Pence also said recently that additional money for education will be key for the 2015 session.

“I believe the coming session of the Indiana General Assembly should be an education session and we should focus on our kids and our teachers and what’s happening in the classrooms of Indiana,” Pence said at the Indiana Legislative Conference.

But he acknowledged that his administration won’t put a dollar amount on its education commitment until state leaders find out how much they have available to spend. That answer – or at least a projection – should come next week when a bipartisan committee forecasts state tax revenue through Fiscal Year 2017.

The numbers will be important because K-12 education funding makes up nearly half of the state’s $15 billion budget. Nearly $6 billion alone goes into what’s called tuition support, which is the money distributed to schools to pay teacher salaries and other basic expenses.

Boosting that funding by 3 percent over two years will cost about $560 million. That’s right. That’s more than half a billion dollars to merely keep up with inflation, let alone provide districts with enough new money to significantly improve programs. It’s also the increase that Democratic Superintendent Glenda Ritz is proposing to give schools for their general funds.

But it’s not clear the state will have enough money even for that kind of increase.

So far this fiscal year – which started July 1 – tax revenue is running about 2.6 percent behind the projections used to write the current budget. That may not sound like much but it totals nearly $148 million with about seven months left in the fiscal year.

Tax receipts are ahead of last year, which means the state is taking in more revenue than it did in Fiscal Year 2014. That’s good news. But because the budget is based on the estimates, the Pence administration must either spend less or take money from the state’s surpluses to make ends meet.

“Revenue hasn’t exactly performed in the last year and a half the way we thought it would,” said State Budget Director Brian Bailey. “And we’ve been able to manage that.”

Bailey said the new projections – scheduled to be released on Thursday – are “absolutely critical for our discussions” about the next budget.

“So much of what we can do depends on what that forecast says,” Bailey said.

It may be most critical to those budget leaders who are hoping to rewrite the formula that distributes revenue to schools. Republicans plan to close the gap between the schools that receive the highest per-pupil funding – which tend to be urban schools with declining enrollments – and those that receive less per-student, which tend to be suburban, growing districts.

That could cause budget shifts from urban districts to suburban ones. But if there’s a lot more money to go around, the urban schools are less likely to feel a lot of pain. That’s the hope at least, one that’s tied to the revenue projections coming next week.