Purdue president: New Indiana high school diplomas won’t meet admission requirements

Purdue University’s president says Indiana’s proposed changes to high school diplomas do not meet the school’s admission standards in math, social studies and world languages.

In a letter sent to top state education leaders last week, President Mung Chiang said several changes to the diplomas do not meet what have been the entry criteria at the Big Ten university.

High school curriculum is an important factor in college admission, Chiang said in the letter.

“Not all students will attend college,” Chiang wrote. “However, all students should clearly understand college admission requirements and be offered the coursework needed to be admitted to and succeed in college.”

A little less than half of the 8,568 first-time, first-year Fall 2023 students are in-state students at Purdue’s West Lafayette campus, excluding international students.

Indiana’s Department of Education and the Commission for Higher Education could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The letter from one of the state’s flagship research universities comes as IDOE seeks revisions to its initial plan for diplomas. The department closed its first wave of public comment on Tuesday.

Education Secretary Katie Jenner previously said a revised draft of diplomas will be made public in August after the State Board of Education weighs in.

A 2023 state law tasks the state board to adopt new requirements by the end of the year. The department pushed back its timeline by a few months but expects to meet the deadline.

“We will not break the law as a State Board of Education,” Jenner said.

Students will no longer be required to take the SAT or ACT to graduate — both standardized exams are highly-encouraged for admission at Purdue and several other state universities. Chiang said that’s one of several factors that could impact students who wish to be admitted to Purdue.

Purdue asked the education department to create an enrollment seal that would align with requirements for “competitive applications” to other research universities in the state.

Under the department’s plan the state would stop offering most existing diplomas — such as the Core 40, honors and technical — with the Class of 2028.

‘Disaster for students’

Many families and community members have expressed concern about dissolving the current honors diploma.

Leaders of the School Town of Munster came out against several parts of the proposal, specifically plans to sunset the honors diploma.

“Losing the academic honors diploma will be a disaster for our students who want to go onto higher education,” said John Doherty, school board president for the district.

Doherty, who spoke at a public hearing about the diplomas on Tuesday, asked if the state board sought input from the Commission for Higher Education.

Chiang said in the letter that Purdue students who completed an Honors diploma performed better than those earning the remaining diplomas, like Core 40.

Those honors students were also more likely to have a higher first semester GPA and greater retention rate, according to 2017 data cited by Chiang.

Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn (D-Fishers), who hosted informational events in her Hamilton County district, said parents and educators have shared an “outpouring of concern” about the new model.

Garcia Wilburn called for the state’s Honors diploma to be reinstated in the next draft. She said the laws passed by lawmakers did not call for a complete rework of the high school diploma system.

“They just called upon you to add a workforce training-based diploma,” Garcia Wilburn said.

Jenner said the new rule needs to be passed by December, but that even more work will come after that.

“It's going to take months working with educators, working with students, parents and families, stakeholders, business industry, some of whom you heard today, to build out that guidance and support that we need,” Jenner said. “The systems that we need.”
 

Rachel Fradette is the WFYI Statehouse education reporter. Contact Rachel at rfradette@wfyi.org.