State’s college trustees short NWI on funds for students
Last Friday, I went to West Lafayette to attend the monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of Purdue University. I wanted to address issues concerning higher education and Northwest Indiana. Although I had been informed there was a public comment period, it turned out not to be true. One had to make a reservation in advance and be approved to speak, even though it is a state institution and the Board of Trustees has a fiduciary duty to the taxpaying public of the state of Indiana.
I wanted to talk to the board about the benign neglect of higher education in NWI — not only by Purdue, but also by Indiana University. Everything I would say to Purdue’s board I would also say to Indiana’s Board of Trustees. This benign neglect of higher education in NWI is not only affecting the citizens of this part of the state, but the way the boards of trustees are acting — or not acting — is denying a real future for the state as a whole.
It is not that the trustees of both universities, and the state Legislature, don’t know what the problem is. The Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics ranks Indiana 15th among the 50 states in the amount of money per-capita it spends on higher education — about where it should be. But it ranks Indiana 50th of 50 states in the mal- distribution of those funds. That is to say, Indiana spends enough money, but the money spent for doctoral institutions is way out of line for the little money spent on bachelor’s- and master’s-awarding institutions.
Ironically, at the Friday meeting, the trustees were presented with the consequences of this misallocation of funds on the state as a whole. The gap between Indiana and the rest of the states of college-age residents increased from 2.4 percent in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 2005. And, for more than 75 counties in Indiana, it would take more than 20 years to catch up with the national average. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that the West Lafayette or Bloomington campus can try will solve that problem. The problem is what the Department of Education indicated, which is the unequal distribution of higher education dollars.
West Lafayette has not increased its undergraduate student body enrollment, but is completing hiring 300 new faculty members. That is more than the current faculty of Purdue University Calumet and Purdue University North Central combined. PUC has had minimal increase in full-time faculty.
At the trustees’ meeting, I met the student body president of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, an articulate, intelligent young black man with great hopes for his future. How could I tell him that Indiana taxpayers are willing to only spend half the amount of tax dollars on him and other minorities who are educated at PUC, Indiana University Northwest and IPFW, as they are on their white compatriots on the main campuses? How could I tell him the federal courts in Texas had ruled this was unconstitutional as a vestige of Jim Crow segregation?
The question of development in NWI always brings out the “incubator” in Merrillville. Purdue President Martin C. Jischke said at the meeting that what is important about an incubator is that it is a “catwalk” away from campus. Funny, it is a long catwalk from Hammond to Merrillville.
But for the trustees of Purdue, like many inside groups, information is all very controlled.
Well, let’s see if IU’s trustees are as controlled.
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