Guest Column: Grading the State of the University

Sidney Fletcher is a junior majoring in Mathematics and a former IDS Opinion columnist. He is an off-campus congressman for IUSA.

IU President Michael McRobbie’s Oct. 9 “State of the University” address can only be described as a response to his “critics”, mostly the students, parents and politicians
concerned about cost.

To them and the IU students that occupied last spring’s Board of Trustees meeting, McRobbie emphasized that he realizes rising tuition is problematic and the University is taking active steps to combat this.

However, McRobbie missed the point of the critique, which is not that administrators are stupid but that they are complacent.

To his critics, McRobbie offered yet another half-baked idea to slow the rise of tuition even as he admitted that his previous idea about summer tuition had failed.
In McRobbie’s response to student critics, he should have started with the issue of administrative accessibility.

There is still no public comment period during Board of Trustees’
meetings.

There aren’t office hours for top administrators to meet with students.
I get that the academy moves slow. But if President McRobbie thinks criticizing students for being unthoughtful while offering thoughtless solutions will appease students, he’s deluded.

Below, some grades for four of the agenda items mentioned:

Summer tuition discount: D+

This experiment to increase enrollment  was a massive flop for the biggest weapon in the tuition fight. McRobbie’s culprit — lack of financial aid during the summer — has validity, but structural changes are needed to support
year-round schooling.

New on-time graduation discount: Incomplete

Performance funding is 5 percent of the state’s baseline in higher education funding and of that, 60 percent is tied to on-time graduation. With both Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th District, and the Commission on Higher Education supporting performance funding, it’s not a coincidence that IU wants to improve its on-time completion rates. But how the program will be implemented?

Addressing student debt: C+

An office of student financial literacy and a corresponding class should have been created 10 years ago. But if the talk of the student loan bubble bursting is
correct, will it be enough?

New approaches to academic advising: C

For anyone who has ever suffered through freshman year advising, it’s clear we need a new approach. However, McRobbie’s focus about improving “benchmarks” is misplaced. Advising changes should, instead,  specifically consider what causes students to fall behind.

­— sidfletc@indiana.edu