Indiana Universities Cut 68 Degrees With Zero Enrollment, Will Merge or Suspend Hundreds More
“So far, 229 programs will be merged and consolidated with other programs, while 101 will be suspended with teach-out, and 74 programs will be eliminated in their entirety.”
It’s amazing that there were so many offerings with no enrollment. So much bloat to cut.
The College Fix reports:
Indiana universities cut 68 degrees with zero enrollment, will merge or suspend 300 others
Public universities in Indiana voluntarily will cut 75 different degree programs, including 68 with zero enrollment, as part of a state budget bill. More than 300 other degrees will either be suspended or consolidated as part of a new requirement to weed out low-enrollment programs, according to the state’s education department.
House Enrolled Act 1001 requires the suspension of low or zero enrollment programs unless a waiver is obtained by the state. State Representative Jeffrey Thompson sponsored the bill. He did not respond to requests for comment from The College Fix.
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced in a news release “that six of the state’s higher education institutions voluntarily submitted more than 400 programs for elimination, suspension, or merger/consolidation.”
The legislation affects 404 programs across Indiana. So far, 229 programs will be merged and consolidated with other programs, while 101 will be suspended with teach-out, and 74 programs will be eliminated in their entirety.
Ball State University in Muncie led the list with 51 total programs either being eliminated or consolidated. The school will eliminate its master’s degree in Teaching Major in English/Language Arts, along with programs in software engineering, German education, and chemical technology.
Other universities have offered to cut degrees in journalism, unmanned systems, theatre and drama, and nursing education. Many of the programs are narrow education degrees or graduate programs.
A higher education expert said the budget bill will “have a positive effect.”
“The bill should have a positive effect by ensuring universities streamline programs to better align with student and industry demand,” Madison Doan, a policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told The Fix via email. “Students currently enrolled in affected programs will be able to complete their studies through a teach-out program, so public universities in Indiana will be able to fulfill their commitments to these students.”
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Comments
There are issues in what is being eliminated when you find
“B.A./B.S. in Women’s and Gender Studies Ball State University Written Commitment to Merge/Consolidate the Program before
AY26-27”
However you also find
“M.S. in Software Engineering Ball State University Routine Staff Action – Eliminating a Program”
When Universities are reforming the devil is in the details.
Reading through this list does not tell me it is good news. The Classics Department being gutted isn’t good news if the price is the Geology Department being decimated.
Sorry to be a killjoy but American scientists are the future of this country and a lot of the universities in this list are gutting science departments and merging or eliminating a wide variety if important specialties.
Furthermore to anyone who thinks it is just one University
“B.S. in Molecular Life Sciences Indiana University Bloomington Suspend (with Teach-Out toward Elimination)/Written
Commitment to Merge/Consolidate the Program before AY26-27”
Our future isn’t in not having humanities (although that is a worthy goal at this point) it is in having the hard sciences which is ultimately what the university system is for today.
I’m not encouraged by the university system thinking life sciences and geology are equal or inferior to gender studies.
Merged vs eliminated……
That is not an encouraging sign.
Or maybe a school run this poorly ought not to be advertising lofty offerings that they can’t attract students to buy. What’s the marketability of an MS in SW Eng from Ball State? Probably less than a BS in the same from about 30 other schools. The degree is sizzle; the steak is competence.
If a computer science program isn’t creating competence the University doesn’t need funding reform it needs a new administration and likely several replaced professors.
You mean, like DeVry?
Yeah it’s still happening elsewhere.
I find it difficult to believe that institutions with STEM programs like Purdue would not be able to pick up the demand in Indiana without market disruption.
You have to ask yourself how and why these were approved in the first place if there are so few interested in enrolling in them? Did they exist solely to provide jobs for otherwise unemployable “academics” with otherwise useless degrees? What’s the process for establishing new degree programs?
Well, what’s the enrollment HISTORY? No one has said.
That’s my question too. Purdue, from my understanding, has a very large online and on-campus graduate program in computer science. Certainly it’s a respected STEm institution.