Dive Brief:
- Indiana’s public colleges are shedding or consolidating about 580 academic programs following a review by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education under a 2025 state law aiming to cull offerings that graduate low numbers of students.
- Of those, roughly 370 programs are being merged or consolidated, while the remaining 210 are being suspended or eliminated. The programs represent roughly a quarter of all academic offerings across Indiana’s public colleges.
- Even more cuts could be ahead. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun recently signed legislation directing the state’s public colleges to either end academic programs considered to produce “low earning” graduates or seek a waiver from the higher education commission.
Dive Insight:
Colleges will have through the 2026-27 academic year to complete the required restructuring, a commission spokesperson said in a Thursday email. No new students will be admitted to the programs starting in fall 2027, though some may be admitted in prior semesters depending on the college.
Students in affected programs will have the opportunity to complete their degrees at their current institutions, the spokesperson said. Fifty of the affected programs had no students enrolled in them.
Braun, a Republican, has strongly supported the legislation. “When higher education is more closely aligned with the jobs of the future, it ensures that the investments of students, families, and taxpayers are stewarded well,” Braun said in a Wednesday statement.
However, some higher education experts have cautioned against cutting academic programs purely based on enrollment or graduate numbers.
Cutting programs in English or history, for instance, may not save colleges money because students who aren’t taking those subjects as majors may still be required to take such classes, Robert Atkins, founder and CEO of analytics firm Gray Decision Intelligence, recently told Higher Ed Dive.
Indiana’s law requires academic programs to graduate a certain number of students based on a three-year rolling average or face the chopping block. Those thresholds range from an average of three students per year for doctoral programs to 15 for bachelor’s programs.
More than 1,000 academic programs didn’t meet these thresholds. They collectively enrolled only 4% of Indiana public college graduates, according to the higher education commission.
The commission decided to allow about 470 programs that fell short of the graduate thresholds to continue. They include some 280 new programs that are still working to build enrollment. Another roughly 140 programs are continuing under improvement plans meant to boost enrollment and align better with industry needs.
The latest culling of the state’s academic programs comes after most of Indiana’s public colleges voluntarily decided to eliminate or consolidate dozens of their offerings shortly before the law took effect.
Last June, the commission announced that six of Indiana’s public colleges were moving to consolidate 232 programs, suspend 101 and eliminate another 75. The vast majority of the programs fell under the new thresholds, though some did meet the new graduate criteria.
Academic restructuring initiated before the law took effect has either been finalized or will be completed by the end of this academic year, according to the commission spokesperson.
Taking into account both rounds of cuts, the nine-campus Indiana University will see the greatest number of eliminations or consolidations, with a total of 605 affected academic programs. That’s followed by Purdue University with 274 affected programs, and Ball State University with 127.
However, the higher education commission and the state’s public colleges have more work cut out for them. Per the legislation signed last month, the commission will now have to review programs for potential elimination if their graduates don’t meet certain earnings thresholds.
Under the new standards, undergraduates must have median earnings four years after graduating that are higher than in-state workers with only a high school diploma. Graduate students must meet a similar threshold compared to workers who hold only a bachelor’s diploma.
If programs don’t meet those thresholds, they’re considered “low earning,” and Indiana’s public colleges would have to shed them or get permission from the commission to continue them.
