Higher ed commission’s first annual report says Indiana is losing college grads
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Indiana’s Commission for Higher Education this week released its first State of Higher Education report, which showed the state’s college-going rate is holding steady but Indiana is retaining fewer college graduates.
The report is the first published by the agency under new commissioner Chris Lowery. Under previous leadership, the commission published multiple reports a year about specific issues, but Lowery announced last year his plans to consolidate those data findings in one annual report.
“We intentionally sought to shift our traditional report style to a data-driven, data-leading, action-oriented approach,” Lowery said in a release. “Instead of providing reports consisting of 2-year-old data, we are providing data that informs the commission’s responses and efforts to address the current state of education and expected trends.”
The data published this week is from the 2022 year. Data from that year shows Indiana hit its third year in a row of no significant change in its college going rate. The commission says approximately 53% of high school seniors in Indiana end up going to college. That number is down from a high of 66% in 2012 and comes in just below the national average of 54%.
The commission has set a goal of a 60% college-going rate. Indiana does rank 10th among all states in the percentage of students who complete a degree within six years at 68%.
While Indiana is one of the best states in the county for attracting out-of-state students, the commission’s report finds Indiana is among the last in the nation in retaining students once they graduate college.
The data shows only 65% of students who graduate from a public university stay in Indiana, which is 40th best in the U.S.
“Resident students have significantly higher retention rates than non-resident students, making it even more critical for Indiana to increase enrollment rates of Hoosier youth and adult students,” the CHE report says.