(Statehouse) – The Indiana House Education Committee has unanimously approved a Senate bill designed to lower college debt and expand educational opportunities statewide.
Local Senator Jean Leising (R-Oldenburg) told the committee she authored Senate Bill 8 to mandate state universities re-examine their degree programs, to see if they could be accomplished in less time.
“That they have to look at four-year bachelor programs and see if any of them could be completed in three years,” Leising said. “Wouldn’t it be nice for kids, like I represent in my rural counties, to be able to complete a bachelor’s degree in three years and hold down the cost of education?”
The committee introduced a few amendments to offer smaller schools more implementation flexibility, and requiring universities to disclose foreign financial gifts – including a five-year look-back period.
Leising’s bill garnered bipartisan support.
It also would create a statewide “reverse transfer” policy for Ivy Tech Community College and Vincennes University, to award associate degrees to eligible former and current students.
Leising says, in drafting the bill, she drew from personal experience and program success stories such as Indiana’s College Core, which is a block of 30 credit hours that are transferable between all public colleges and universities in the state.
“I liked the looks of it when they first approached me, because I saw the benefits to my own granddaughter,” Leising said. “When she graduated from a small private high school with about 200 kids, and she had 37 college credits to transfer directly to Purdue with the letter grades.”
The legislation is a cornerstone of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s 2024 “Next Level Agenda,” which proponents say could revolutionize Indiana’s education landscape for students and families grappling with costs.
(Our newsgathering partners at Indiana News Service contributed to this story)
