According to the Indiana Commission on Higher Education, in 2004, the state appropriation per full-time equivalent student for Purdue University Calumet was $4,797; for Purdue University in West Lafayette it was $7,981.
That is a difference of $3,184 per student per year, or about $20 million less for PUC each year.
This is your tax money that is going to Indianapolis and not coming back. And it is money that can only be spent on educating students, not on parking, dorms or athletics.
This is bad enough and in need of some immediate correction. But instead of a correction, at the last Indiana legislative session, PUC was cut $500,000 per year (not temporarily, but forever).
I have tried to understand why this could be happening and to make some sense of why Northwest Indiana is being financially shortchanged and its students are being abused in this manner.
The blame cannot be put on West Lafayette;leaders there are focused only on that campus — as they should.
Who is in a position to shine a light upon the subject and help higher education in NWI?
When all the “bull” is peeled away, there are really only three people responsible who represent the interests of PUC and the citizens of the district: state Sen. Frank Mrvan, state Rep. John Aguilera, and Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott, Jr. They are the central political figures we elect to take care of these concerns, to return tax dollars to the district.
It is not happening because they represent the three types of politicians we elect to our detriment: the nice grandfather, the fraud and he who does not know.
Mrvan represents the grandfather. Everyone loves him, Democrats and Republicans. He is a very nice person, likeable and completely aboveboard and truthful.
But likability is not the same as effectiveness. Thus, he is in no position to take on West Lafayette or develop a coalition to solidify funding for NWI.
Aguilera represents the fraud; he allowed the Legislature to pass the $500,000 cut for PUC. I always wondered, why? Then I remembered.
Aguilera is a fraud who pretended his “summer home” in Munster, in state Rep. Linda Lawson’s district, was an oversight. Is it also an oversight that has John C. Aguilera Jr. working for Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis?
No wonder he doesn’t care about NWI or PUC.
Mayor McDermott represents the politician who doesn’t know. McDermott’s opposition, in a recent column to the Toll Road lease, is an embarrassment of self-serving untruths and an anachronistic perception of economic development.
While asking for state support for Cabela’s, a project that financially benefits his father and brother, he will deny the rest of the state money for economic development.
While distorting the facts about the 33 percent of the tolls that are paid by Hoosiers, he cries that receiving 34 percent of the lease revenue is not fair.
While crying about economic development, he is incapable of understanding what Gov. Mitch Daniels does, that getting $3.85 billion for Hoosiers from outside the state is economic development.
Taxing the gas that Hoosiers use takes money out of their pockets and is economic un-development.
Until at least the frauds and the know-nothings are removed permanently from NWI politics, our economic development and future will continue to slip out of our hands.
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