The Indiana Commission for Higher Education’s new strategic plan challenges the state’s colleges and universities to focus on college completion and student success.
Titled “Reaching Higher, Achieving More,” the document aims to create more pathways for degree completion, to safeguard college affordability and to ensure academic quality at all levels of Indiana’s postsecondary education system.
“Completing college has become the new passport to prosperity and opportunity for Hoosiers today,” said Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers. “We seek to establish one of the best and most student-centered higher education systems in the nation, so Indiana graduates are prepared for the future.”
The plan presents three key challenges:
(1) College Completion: Increase on-time college graduation rates for Hoosier students to at least 50 percent at four-year campuses and 25 percent at two-year campuses by 2018.
(2) Degree Production: Double the number of college degrees and certificates produced currently by 2025 (requires increasing annual degree production from approximately 60,000 degrees to 120,000 degrees).
(3) Education Attainment: Increase higher education attainment of Hoosier adults to 60 percent of Indiana’s population by 2025 (45 percent by 2018).
Indiana ranks 42nd nationally in education attainment with only a third of the state’s adult population completing education beyond high school. Less than a third of Indiana’s four-year college students graduate on time and just over half graduate after six years. Only 4 percent of the state’s two-year college students graduate on time and 12 percent complete within three years.
“The commission’s strategic plan outlines a clear path to what has always been our No. 1 goal: increasing the personal income of Hoosiers,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels. “To do that, we need a highly trained workforce, and that means our higher education system must be affordable, high quality and purposeful in its efforts to dramatically increase the percentage or Hoosiers with a college degree or certificate.”
