How Can Indiana Improve Its Economy Without Educated Citizens?

 The answer is we cannot improve our economy. No longer are good jobs easily available for those with a  bare high school diploma or a GED certificate. Whether a skilled trade or a profession, education is necessary.

Meanwhile, college-bound Hoosiers are on the decline: Tuition hikes on the way for Indiana’s public colleges and universities, with fewer students going.

Data released last year showed that only half of Indiana’s 2020 high school graduates pursued some form of college education beyond high school. The drop marked the state’s lowest college-going rate in recent history, but the decline has been ongoing for the last five years.

Of those high school graduates who attend college, only two thirds are on track to complete a degree.

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Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, said lowering tuition is still the best answer.

“We have declining enrollment. I understand math — we lost about 25,000 students from our public higher education in the last five or six years. In normal market thoughts, we would be lowering the tuition,” he said. “And if we’re going to have incentives, they ought to reach the customer, not the intermediary. Telling a parent that if more kids enroll and more kids complete on time, the university will get more money. It’s not going to sell them anything. They’re not going to see that. So what’s wrong with lowering tuition? I think we have great schools, and our customers aren’t showing up.”

I agree with Ed DeLaney. When I worked out at DIY, there was a 21-year-old who talked about being a chef. When I suggested Ivy Tech, he said he did not want to get into debt (that he might work his way through college did not seem obvious to him, and the way he talked there was no way I could have changed his mind.)

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