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Fewer people in Indiana are choosing to go to college than in years past

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Fewer people in Indiana are choosing to go to college than in years past. According to data published last week by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, just 53 percent of high school students in 2020 (the last year for which data was available) planned to pursue education after high school.
Chris Lowery, Commissioner for Higher Education, told Inside Indiana Business that he believes the state is going in the wrong direction, but that for several reasons people seem to believe a college or trade school education is not for them.
“For some time individuals, consumers, have been questioning the value of training and education beyond high school,” he said. “There are three primary factors: affordability…quality and career relevance.”
Lowery countered the affordability assertion by pointing out that some Indiana schools have not raised tuition in several years. One of those is Purdue University.
Lowery also said that when you hear stories about people who get obscure degrees that are seemingly useless, leaving the person in debt and pouring coffee for a living, those are not normal.
“In Indiana the advancement through levels of post-secondary education, through training and higher education, result in lower unemployment, higher wages, high net worth,” he said. “We’re at a 2.2 percent unemployment rate. But, as you start to dig into that, it really becomes differentiated. It’s less than one percent for individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher. But, it’s nearly five times that for someone with only a high school diploma.”
Lowery said he hopes to see the trend turned around by introducing students and parents to several programs that make getting a degree more likely.
“We have the 21st Century Scholar Program here in Indiana since 1990. The percentage of those students going on to some form of education, college past high school is 81 percent, targeted at low-income students, beginning in middle school,” he said.
“The new Indiana College Core, which has been around for a couple of years, a block of 30 hours that a student can earn, while in high school, for free. Transfer them to a university and have a year complete,” said Lowery.
Info about those programs can be found at www.in.gov/che .

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2 comments

DAVID A KRIEGEL June 21, 2022 at 5:33 pm

I tell most high school students to NOT go to college at age 18 UNLESS they have a scholarship in a degree with a license or certification that will make money I have observed over 50 years way too many kids go to college, take nothing courses, rack up lots of debt and drop out. I say at age 18 get a certified licensed trade school or join the military with a guaranteed “C” school trade school Many trades pay in excess of 80,000 a year way higher than many college diplomas Then if you want to go to college with a goal go ahead Colleges have become money machines paying folks huge salaries and building temples to themselves

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Charles U Farley June 21, 2022 at 9:05 pm

If you hate what you do, but it pays the bills, it is a job.

If you like what you do and it pays the bills, it is a career.

If you like what you do but cannot make any money doing it, it’s just a hobby and you didn’t choose wisely.

Too many degrees (especially the woke BS ones) fall into that 3rd category.

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