University Leaders Warn New Indiana High School Diploma Proposal Doesn’t Meet Admission Requirements

On Monday, July 22, Purdue University President Mung Chiang sent a letter to the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education expressing his concern regarding the proposed changes to the graduation requirements for Indiana high schoolers, and their failure to meet entry requirements for the university. 

Specific issues include the slashing of credit hours for math, science, social studies, and language, and dissolution of the academic honors diploma.

The letter stressed the difference the academic honors diploma made in predicting student success as opposed to the basic core 40 diploma or the technical honors diploma, citing the following statistics from the freshman class profile:

• “First-term GPA (fall 2017): 3.1 for Academic Honors vs. 2.6 for Core 40”
• “One-year retention rates (fall 2017): 92% for Academic Honors vs. 78% for Core 40”
• “Four-year graduation rates (fall 2017): 66% for Academic Honors vs. 45% for Core 40”

Recent studies have shown that Indiana is already far behind when it comes to healthcare and inclusivity ratings. If the current changes are accepted by the IDOE, then the state is likely to fall in terms of quality of education as well.

Letters were also sent by leaders at Indiana University, Ball State University, University of Southern Indiana, Vincennes University, and at Indiana State University worried about admission requirements.

“Republican legislators are putting every child in our state at risk of rejection from top universities, including state-funded schools right here in Indiana,” said Indiana Democratic Party Chair Mike Schmuhl. “This is a policy that should be fixed immediately for the sake of students, teachers, parents, universities, and future employers.”

“We owe current high schoolers and the generations to come after them an education that sets them up for success for the rest of their lives. Every student in our state deserves the best possible opportunity to succeed, and this change simply falls short. Indiana needs to make it easier and more affordable for families to reach higher education.”