Education by the numbers

by Steven B. Combs, Ph.D.

Since beginning my new higher education administrative role, I’ve been inundated by numbers of every type. Almost every professional document I read, or meeting I attend, contains some percentage, amount, cost or goal. Some of them are redundant and insignificant while others I find interesting or valuable. Let me present the most interesting numbers that have presented themselves to me in the past couple of days.

• 1000: The goal our Chancellor has identified as the total number of student who transfer from our institution to a four-year institution by 2015. Great goal and hope we can reach this one. We have several initiatives in the hopper and hope to blog about some of these soon.
• 17.83%: The decrease in our region’s student FTE from this same time last year (after we drop non-pays/attends). This is significant and is the cause of many of our financial challenges.
• $380,000: The cost to remodel the President’s Office at Purdue University.¹ No wonder the community college is the most affordable higher education in the state.
• $1.7 billion: Total 2012–13 Indiana state appropriations for higher education.² An increase of .03%. As our President put it today, the budget is flatlined from last year.
• 6%: Percentage of the $1.7 billion that will be distributed among those colleges and universities that meet certain performance goals. No, I have not seen these goals yet, but will be researching very soon.
• 488,964: Number of K–12 students in Indiana on free or reduced lunches.³ That’s almost 50% of the students.

Those are just few numbers that were discussed today during a recent regional academic officer’s meeting. There were others, as I found while perusing my notes, but these were the digits I found most interesting, striking, confusing or worrisome. I’ll keep my eyes open in the future for other numbers and when I do find more of interest, I’ll try and remember to consolidate them and add to a future post.

¹ IndyStar ↩ ² IN.gov ↩ ³ Stats Indiana ↩