Education improvements welcome

Last week, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels announced a proposal to make higher education more accessible to lower-income Hoosier families. Meeting with officials from Indiana colleges and universities, Daniels said he wants the state to provide $6,000 to students pursuing higher education from families that make less than $54,000 annually.\nThat figure is the median income in Indiana, meaning that the funding could potentially provide many middle- and lower-income students with access to valuable education and skills training.\nSome might wonder about Daniels’ motives for pioneering this plan (the cost of which and number of potential participants he admits he does not know). We suspect that it has something to \ndo with his reelection campaign this year. \nRaising taxes, a move likely necessary to sustain such a program, and increasing state aid to the disadvantaged are normally tough sells to Republicans. However, both Democrats hoping to oust him in the fall have made education reform central to \ntheir campaigns.\nIt seems Daniels, then, has made a timely unveiling of his plan to show himself as the true hero of vocational education. By besting Democrats at their own game, Mitch knows he’ll be unlikely to get ditched.\nWhether his motivation is the goodness of his heart or simply \npolitical competition, our state really can’t afford to protest improvements to its deficient education system.\nNationally, Indiana ranks 44th for number of residents older than 25 with bachelor’s degrees and 41st for associate’s degrees. Both of those figures fall inexcusably in the bottom 20 percent. We need all the help we can get.\nSome critics of the proposal have pointed out that most students from families with annual incomes below $40,000 can already attend Ivy Tech for free, as if this indicates the plan’s uselessness. Their argument is deficient for \ntwo reasons. \nFirst, it presumes that everyone making less than $40,000 only wants to attend Ivy Tech. In contrast, the governor’s plan provides that the $6,000 dollars be applicable to tuition at any in-state university. Thankfully, the governor’s plan addresses the value of making this funding available to students from lower-income families who need assistance pursuing a four-year degree.\nSecond, the argument ignores the fact that families living on incomes between $40,000 and $54,000 annually are not living the high life. When your income falls in the bottom half of our state’s wages, a significant portion of your income goes toward purchasing the basics. These families simply might not have any extra money to help their children through school.\nEven if one doesn’t personally stand to receive money from this program, everyone in the state should support this effort. By developing our state’s best resource, the potential of its workers, we can improve the environment in which we all live.\nIn the end, we should applaud Daniels for making this a priority but realize that $6,000 per student will not be the last reform needed to bring our state out of the bottom 20 percent in education.