COMMENTARY: Guiding low-income Hoosiers toward college completion could transform economy

Political leaders rarely mention the numbers’ significance and focus instead on the state’s business-friendly tax and regulation policies.

Yet, the power of those two intertwined statistics transcends the others. When it comes to the chances of average Hoosiers seeing an improvement in their quality of life, those two stats are bottom-line. The rest is just details.

The first involves education levels. Indiana ranked 43rd in the percentage of its population holding at least a college bachelor’s degree in 2011, according to the Indiana Business Research Center.

The second involves incomes. Indiana ranked 40th in per-capita income among its residents that same year.

Lowly rankings in those two statistical economic categories aren’t a coincidence. Indiana needs more of its young people to finish college.

An initiative by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education could lead to an crucial increase in the number of college graduates from low-income backgrounds. The “college success coaching” program emerged from a pilot project conducted last year at Indiana State University. ISU contracted with a company, InsideTrack, to provide academic coaches for 1,000 freshmen in the 2013-14 collegiate year. The coaches kept in contact with the students by telephone every two weeks, listening to their worries, answering questions, guiding them to on-campus services, helping them set goals, and encouraging them to involve themselves in activities.

It worked well, said Josh Powers, ISU’s associate vice president for student success.

So the state commission used a $2.4-million grant from USA Funds, a nonprofit philanthropic and policy organization in Indianapolis, to implement the college success coaching plan on a more statewide basis, offering that assistance to 2,500 incoming freshman this fall at ISU, IUPUI and Ivy Tech Community College campuses.

The targeted freshmen are 21st Century Scholars — teenagers from low-income households who pledged as eighth-graders to keep a 2.5 grade-point average through high school, abstain from drugs and alcohol and finish college prep courses. In return, the state provided them a scholarship covering four- or two-year tuition at any Indiana public college, or an equivalent amount at a private school.

It’s a great concept, launched in 1990 by Gov. Evan Bayh. Today, 100,000 students from middle school to college are enrolled in the 21st Century Scholars program. Its $100-million annual cost reflects an investment in the future. Seventy-eight percent of those young people who made that commitment enter college, compared to just 53 percent of low-income high schoolers overall. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of 21st Century Scholars complete college on time, according to Higher Ed calculations. A third of them finish within six years (or three for those seeking associate’s degrees). Among all students at Hoosier colleges, 23 percent finish on time and 42 percent in six or three years.

The coaching program aims to improve the 21st Century Scholars’ graduation rates by 15 percent.

Indiana could benefit, big time.

“The impact on the economy, the social infrastructure and productive capacity of the state is just going to be fantastic,” Powers said last week.

The completion of those degrees can change the lives of people surrounding those graduates, who frequently become the first in their families, church congregations and neighborhoods to finish college. Others see that it can be done and follow their path. They create better-educated populations that  statistically experience reductions in public-assistance spending, incarceration and divorce rates, and improved public health.

“There’s sort of a multiplying effect,” said Jason Bearce, associate commissioner for student success initiatives at the Higher Ed Commission.

ISU serves as ground zero of the effort to boost that multiplication. The university has more 21st Century Scholars as students than any other individual campus in Indiana, including IU at Bloomington and Purdue at West Lafayette — both nearly four times ISU’s enrollment size. Last year, 719 21st Century Scholars attended ISU, followed by IU with 658, IUPUI 634, Ball State 545, Purdue 448 and Vincennes (a two-year university) 443. An estimated 760 Scholars will attend ISU this fall, Bearce said.

Like any college student, the Scholars face obstacles to finishing. Some of their hurdles are distinct, though. Their families, having never experienced the demands of college course loads, may expect their collegian to rush home to help with a troubled sibling. Finances for things 21st Century scholarships don’t cover are tough to generate. They often haven’t seen an older brother or sister, neighbor or friend, or even a parent, studying at the kitchen table at night. So they must develop study habits on their own, especially if their high school homework wasn’t nearly as rigorous.

Not every 21st Century Scholar has those same difficulties, said Dustin Hitt, principal at Sullivan Middle School and one of the earliest 21st Century Scholars. He graduated from ISU in 1999 and quipped that an academic coach wouldn’t have been necessary for him. Hitt’s mom filled that role. “She didn’t really leave it as an option for me not to beat the odds,” he said last week.

Still, the coaching could help many of those Scholars, Hitt added. “Some of these kids don’t have the besthome structure and those expectations haven’t been held up to them,” he explained.

In addition to that acclimation, the coaches can also help the Scholars overcome feelings that they don’t fit in or belong on campus. The “marching orders from the commission” are for the academic coaching program to erase such doubts, Bearce said.

These days, Hitt sees his middle schoolers signing those 21st Century Scholars pledges. He encourages them to “keep their head on straight” and follow through with the promise. “I tell them, ‘This is the equalizer. It doesn’t matter what kind of clothes you wear. It doesn’t matter what job your parents have. You can go to college,’” Hitt said.

He did, graduated and became a principal, to the surprise of his old high school buddies.

The opportunities for others to do the same makes Indiana a better place to live.