Some sobering numbers from Complete College America:

•For every 100 Indiana ninth-graders, 44 will enter college the fall after graduating from high school.

•Thirteen will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years.

•One will graduate with an associate’s degree in three years.

•Just 36 percent of Hoosiers 25 to 34 years old have a college degree.

The numbers are sobering because a college education is increasingly the minimum required for a job. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce has forecast that by 2018, 63 percent of all jobs will require some level of higher education. Indiana must do a better job of creating college graduates.

Gov. Mitch Daniels clearly had the numbers in mind this week when he called on the trustees of Indiana’s public universities and colleges to focus as much on graduates as on incoming freshmen. But his criticism of administrative costs is likely counter to that charge.

“Higher education has never been so important to the health and well being of our state as it is now,” he said. “Our work for close to six years has been one way or another all about trying to improve the long-term prospects for upward mobility for Hoosiers. … It’s been increasingly of concern to me the one box we have yet to check – the one that could ultimately, if we don’t address it successfully, hold us back as a state – is the educational attainment of our working-age citizens.”

The governor called on the trustees to exercise their financial oversight in ensuring the “maximum educational success of every student.” He cited recent studies critical of increasing administrative costs at universities.

The conservative Goldwater Institute issued a report last month showing that the number of college administrators per 100 students increased by 39 percent from 1993 to 2007, while the number of professors and researchers increased by just 18 percent.

The figures were much worse for Indiana University-Bloomington, according to the report’s authors: A 56 percent increase in full-time administrators and a 7 percent decline in full-time faculty and researchers. At Purdue-West Lafayette, administration increased by 30 percent while teaching and research increased by 9 percent.

The study drew sharp criticism from Arizona university officials, who questioned the source of the data and its methodology, charging that the authors combined figures for executive/administrative posts with professional support/service jobs. In other words, an academic adviser was counted along with the university president as an administrator.

A response to the study posted by Arizona State University’s top officials noted that employers have different expectations for graduates today than they did in 1993, requiring students to be prepared for a global workplace. In response, universities must provide more to students than an instructor lecturing students.

“As students get more services such as study abroad, internships, career placement and learning assistance, the staff providing the services are counted as administrators by (the report),” according to the Arizona State response. “If the university froze in time, continuing to operate as it did in 1993, it would be irrelevant and ineffective, like any other institution or corporation that refuses to grow and evolve.”

University officials in Indiana have not responded to the Goldwater Institute study, but they surely could make the same case. Many of the changes that have occurred in higher education in recent years have been aimed at better engaging students in their studies and in providing the support that will keep them in school.

Daniels is right to call for better completion rates and right to insist that the state’s colleges and universities operate as efficiently as possible. But criticizing the universities for administrative bloat might be counter to the aim of increasing the number of college graduates.

Indiana’s poor standing in educational attainment might be attributed to the fact that, until recent years, universities haven’t focused on retention and completion. While they emphasized excellent teaching and research, universities lost students struggling to balance work and study or to connect their studies to post-graduate goals, through internships or immersive learning.

The message the governor should have delivered to the trustees was this: Indiana needs more college graduates and Hoosiers need more college degrees. Make sure your institutions are delivering what’s needed to ensure all students succeed – from learned professors to deans of students to computer support staff.