Porter: Lack of transparency from CHE disappointing

State Rep. Gregory W. Porter (D-Indianapolis) issued the following statement upon the adjournment of the annual meeting of the Fiscal Policy Interim Study Committee:

“My biggest takeaway from this meeting is the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) must do more to enhance transparency and share the data on student debt and other data requested from the Legislative Services Agency (LSA). Ivy Tech was the only college or university who actually presented to the committee and laid out, in full, all of the information requested by LSA, including personnel data, data on student debt and information on total operating costs. This is unfortunate for several reasons. Firstly, the General Assembly needs to have an idea of how much funding colleges need to adequately operate, and we need to be ensuring that Hoosier students are leaving these colleges and universities with the skills and resources they need to stay on their feet and contribute to their local economies using their education.

“Without all of this information, it's difficult to gauge how much Hoosiers are benefitting from these institutions. As my colleague, former State Rep. Bill Crawford used to say: 'It's not a one-way alley, it's a two-way street.' These institutions should have much of this information with the click of a button, and it should not be on LSA to find this important data. CHE needs to coordinate and facilitate with the universities when it comes to collecting and sharing standardized data that the General Assembly requests. Next year, it's my hope that the CHE does their part to provide us with this information to determine next best steps for higher education in Indiana.”