The Indiana Institute for Working Families (2017) identifies access to a vehicle as a non-academic barrier that hinders a student’s ability to complete. The study mentions that to meet the state’s workforce and economic goals, we need to remove non-academic barriers standing between adult students and their post-secondary education. Transportation is one of these identified non-academic barriers because it is unlikely for students to be able to attend and complete without access to a reliable vehicle. There are approximately 99,804 Indiana adults without a vehicle that are non-high school graduates, high school graduates only, or some post-secondary without completion.
To address this need at the Madison campus, our retention team is seeking funds to provide funds for public transportation access for two types of students: current students who are unable to find reliable transportation threatening their ability to complete and potential students who need a temporary plan for transportation to enroll in classes at our Ivy Tech campus.
Barrier Busting Transportation Funds:
Madison, Indiana does not have a public bussing system, and the Madison campus is not accessible by sidewalk or bike path. Therefore, the most affordable means of transportation for someone without transportation would be the Catch-a-Ride system. The standard Catch-A-Ride fare is $1.50 per fare for 0-5 miles with and additional $0.25 per mile beyond 5 miles. This proposal estimates the average fare for a student to be $3 per fare (11 mi.), in which they need a fare to and from campus ($6). This proposal is requesting round-trip fare for 80 transportation fares to campus. While there is not a system for our program to allocate a specific number of students or a specific number of fares per student, it is assumed that any student without reliable transportation will need more than one fare. For example, this amount could provide approximately 8 students without reliable transportation for 10 fares (average distance 11 mi.), but the funds will be disseminated on an as-needed, per mile, per fare basis.