Indiana’s public universities are at the Statehouse this week to make their cases for increased funding.
A common theme among the university presidents Wednesday was proving to lawmakers that their school is working to reduce the cost of college for its students. Acting Purdue president Tim Sands said one of the ways the West Lafayette school aims to accomplish that is creating a more year-round schedule by increasing class offerings in the summer.
“I think we’ll see much higher completion rates, much faster completion sometimes, but it will also allow students who do internships, study abroad to see less penalty in their time to graduation,” said Sands.
Indiana State University president Daniel Bradley said his school is incentivizing students to finish on time through a graduation guarantee program offered to incoming freshman for the first time this year.
“They will do certain things and we will do certain things and if they keep their promise, they’ll graduate in four years or we will make sure that they don’t pay any more tuition in order to finish up,” said Bradley.
Bradley also said the school is outsourcing a number of services, including its motor vehicle fleet and student health services, as an effort to reduce costs. The presidents of Indiana University and Ball State go before the Ways and Means committee Thursday.
