IU receives portion of $1 million grant to help graduation rate

IU will receive $250,000 of a $1 million grant given to the state of Indiana to help improve its college completion rate, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Tuesday.

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the non-profit group Complete College America, the grant will provide assistance to IU regional campuses and Ivy Tech Community College in graduating more students.

“The single biggest challenge, and therefore opportunity, in terms of the jobs future of this state is to address our shortfall in post-secondary education,” Daniels said during the announcement.

Thirty-three states applied for the grant, but only 10 were selected by the advisory
committee.

Out of those 10, Indiana was one of three states that was selected unanimously.

“It really is a recognition and validation of the path Indiana is on in tackling this very important issue of having more students graduate from college and raising the educational level of the workforce in the state of Indiana,” Stan Jones, president of Complete College America, said.

He said one of the untold stories of the recession is while people are not buying things like new houses and cars, they are buying education. The country is seeing record enrollment, including Indiana colleges.

“It means that people have chosen in this difficult economic time to place their bet on higher education,” Jones said. “They have chosen to take time from their families and their jobs and what little money they have to place a bet on higher education as their way to steer through this economic uncertainty.”

But despite this record enrollment, the graduation rate remains low.

Within four-year programs, only one-third of students actually complete college in four years, according to the state’s commission of higher education. Even after six years, only half of the students in the program graduate. Across Indiana and the country, only 25 percent of students complete two-year programs in three years.

Many students never graduate at all.

“They walk away with some college and a lot of debt,” Jones said.

The proposal will focus on restructuring and remediation in order to graduate more students and graduate them more quickly.

Approximately $500,000 of the grant will go to Ivy Tech and $250,000 will go to IU’s regional campuses. The leftover $250,000 will remain at the state level to support the proposal.

“We don’t have all the specifics yet, but this is going to help kids put together an academic plan and get the support they need so that they can actually graduate,” IU spokesman Mark Land said.

For IU, the money means better support for the University’s Blueprint for Student Attainment at the regional campuses, a plan that was approved last June by the Board of Trustees.

The program will help provide course mapping software, intensive student advising and other strategies to help encourage students to complete
college.

Dean of Students Harold “Pete” Goldsmith said the grant will help make a positive change in the state and at all IU campuses.

“The attainment of a college degree is becoming more and more important to states to help revitalize sagging economies and take advantage of the new technologies that require workers with greater technical skills,” Goldsmith said. “Anything that helps increase the number of college grads is a good thing.”