A Message From President Daniels
March 2020
Dear Alumni and Friends,
A lot has happened at your university in the first two months of 2020. In this dispatch, I’d like to update you on a few of the biggest pieces of news.
Fast Start for Indiana high school students
Last month, we announced a new attempt to put a Purdue degree within the reach of even more Indiana students, particularly those from rural and low-income backgrounds.
Fast Start will enable Indiana high school students to earn up to a year of free college credit through free online courses and the corresponding College Level Examination Program (CLEP) exams. Purdue will assure admission to students who pass a minimum of five CLEP exams, equivalent to a full semester, through the program.
Purdue has long recognized CLEP exams just as we do the similar Advanced Placement (AP) tests.
Fast Start is available to all Indiana high school students, but will be especially beneficial to those in smaller schools that often lack access to the full offering of Advanced Placement courses, and those for whom college education is less affordable.
Fast Start builds on and complements the mission of the Purdue Polytechnic High Schools, which we created after losing patience with inner-city Indiana school systems that are producing far too few qualified applicants, as a means to build our own pipeline of students. The first graduates will emerge a little over a year from now, and we have high hopes that many of them and those in subsequent years will qualify for and enroll at Purdue.
Tuition frozen through 2022
We also announced last month that tuition on our West Lafayette campus will remain at 2012 levels for an additional year, through at least 2022.
This extension means that seven straight graduating classes will have earned their degrees without seeing any increase in tuition. The last time Purdue increased tuition, today’s freshmen were in elementary school.
Had Purdue raised tuition and fees and room and board at the same rate as comparable institutions, Purdue families would have spent a combined $600 million more over the past seven years. A graduating in-state student who has lived on campus the past four years has saved over $12,000 compared with the rate increases at other universities; an out-of-state student has saved over $31,000.
The number of Purdue students who graduated debt-free in 2018-19 was 59% compared with 43% nationally. Annual student borrowing at Purdue is $126 million, down one-third since 2012, and debt per undergraduate for 2019 stands at $3,558, down $1,900 since 2012.
Meanwhile, total student loan debt in the United States has climbed to $1.56 trillion, with the average borrower saddled with nearly $33,000 in debt by graduation.
Coronavirus
As the coronavirus continues to be a major worldwide concern, please be assured that we are aware of the situation and that we are working very closely with local, state and federal officials to monitor the spread of the virus and make the best decisions possible for our faculty, staff, students and visitors.
Purdue has seen no positive cases of coronavirus and continues to follow all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and federal recommendations.
Out of an abundance of caution, we have canceled all future university-sponsored travel (including study abroad) to countries the CDC has listed as level 2 and level 3 risks for coronavirus through at least the end of this academic semester, and in some cases, through the summer. Countries currently at these levels of risk are China, South Korea, Iran, Italy and Japan.
We are also urging our community to make informed decisions about personal travel, particularly as we look ahead to spring break.
The situation remains very fluid, and changes daily. We’re watching closely and will take additional steps as needed. We’ll post the most up-to-date information here.
Purdue Global virtual graduation
Nearly 500 Purdue Global graduates took part Feb. 27 in a commencement ceremony in Los Angeles, but only 400 or so were there in person. More than 75 graduates participated from afar through a first-of-its-kind virtual reality experience.
Watching from headsets at home, graduates had a 360 view of the ceremony and could see and hear everything as if they were attending. With the help of an in-person camera operator, they felt as though they were marching in the procession line, sitting with their fellow graduates and crossing the stage to hear their name announced. The image below captures the moment a virtual graduate “walked” across the stage to receive congratulations from Chancellor Betty Vandenbosch.
Likewise, this short video montage from a 2019 Purdue Global commencement ceremony gives a great sense of the importance of our work to better serve those students who fall outside of what’s considered a “traditional” college student. Their Purdue pride and sense of accomplishment in earning their degree is inspiring.
New Bands & Orchestras building coming soon
Made possible by a wondrously generous alumni gift, Purdue Bands & Orchestras will move out of the Elliott Hall of Music basement and call the forthcoming Hagle Hall home in spring 2022.
The new facility will be built along the Student Success Corridor, which connects student residential areas with the campus’s academic center. Although I’ll miss hearing the group practicing outside my window in the warmer months, the members of the 133-year-old Bands & Orchestras program are more than deserving of a space to call their own.
‘This is Purdue’ podcast
In January, we launched a new way for you to stay up-to-speed on Purdue news, the "This Is Purdue" podcast. Chronicling the small steps and giant leaps Boilermakers take every day and featuring a mix of interviews and stories, “This Is Purdue” tells the stories of how Boilermakers across all disciplines are delivering practical solutions to today’s toughest challenges. A new episode will be available every other Monday, which you can find here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for everything you do to help make these accomplishments possible. Your continued support and pride for Purdue are invaluable as we find new and better ways to fulfil our land-grant mission.
Boiler Up, and Hail Purdue.
Sincerely,
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
President