Hoosiers electric bills spiking.

Indiana's college going rate dips.

Plus, a report on Indiana's legal future, and more.

From the television studios at WFYI, it's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending July 25th, 2025.

Indiana Week In Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

This week, the average resident in Indiana is paying $28 a month more for electricity than they did last year.

Indiana Public Broadcasting's Rebecca Thiele reports that's according to an analysis by the group Citizens Action Coalition that looked at electric bills from Indiana's five investor owned utilities.

Indiana passed a law two years ago that requires the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to take affordability and other factors into account when making its decisions, CAK Program Director Ben Inskeep says 2025 marked the highest year over year jump in electric bills in two decades, which he says shows the law isn't working.

For example, Nipsco customers in northwest Indiana are seeing a nearly $50 a month bill increase this past year.

So we're talking really big numbers that we just don't have any precedents for here.

Among other things, Inskeep says, utilities are raising rates to pay for coal ash cleanup, the high cost of natural gas, and a bigger rate of return for shareholders.

He says Indiana Utilities have also cut deals with industrial users and rate increases, saddling residents with more of the costs.

Is this an affordability crisis that lawmakers need to address?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Whitley Yates.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse Bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Ann, lawmakers focused a lot of attention on spikes in property tax bills, and rightfully so in the last session.

Do they need to focus the same kind of attention on this issue?

They should have been focusing attention on this issue for years.

Okay.

This before this record breaking rate increase.

Indiana was paying the highest monthly average residential bill in the Midwest.

In the Midwest.

Okay.

And that's in part because this legislature said take away incentives for solar, take away incentives for wind.

We don't want those kinds of things.

And nationally, the Republicans, when we have states like Kansas that want to export solar and wind electricity, the Republicans say, no, you can't do that.

You can't do that.

And in the meanwhile, all they're doing is encouraging these data centers, which are like sponges, to absorb electricity without any thought for what that's going to do to the cost for the average rate player.

And they don't produce any jobs, and they're getting incentives from state and local government to, to, set to establish their centers here.

It makes absolutely no sense.

Yes, they ought to think about it.

You know, they're cutting the income tax like this, and then all the utilities are going up.

People are paying more and it's hurting people.

Lawmakers have started to talk about this in the General Assembly, but we haven't really seen any big push.

Again, I'm likening it to property tax bills because there were huge spikes in that.

And it prompted outcry from Hoosiers and it prompted action from lawmakers.

Do they need to have the same sort of response to this issue?

I think that they are looking at it.

And there was legislation passed when it came to transparency for the utility companies and the utility bills, as well as accountability for those data centers that she's speaking about.

And if you remember, this summer there was a utility sustainability conference or summit that was hosted.

So I do believe that they're gathering the stakeholders together, specifically, this administration is gathering the stakeholders together in order to really look at this issue, circumspectly, and provide what's best for Hoosiers.

Some of this is.

To provide incentives for wind and solar, and they ought to be having an outcry against Josh Hawley and Donald Trump stopping the cheaper electricity coming from Kansas.

But I haven't heard a word from this administration on that.

Well, speaking of this administration, there was a lot of focus during the election last year about the role that the IURC, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, plays in this process.

And, you know, the idea of I mean, the focus there was stopping the closure or retirement of of coal fired power plants.

But it does seem like this administration is trying to take more of a look at what the IURC can and can't do in its role.

I think that's true.

They are trying to look more closely at what's possible in anticipation of this problem.

In all likelihood, getting worse.

But, if you look at this, this is yes, it's an Indiana problem, but it's also every neighboring states problem.

It's also every other states problem.

If you look at I mean, the numbers have been this is a trend that we've seen for years.

And it's actually spiked since Donald Trump's inauguration.

I'm not saying he's necessarily directly to blame, but it's up nationally 6% on average, just from January through the end of the first, the end of the second quarter.

So that's a problem.

and you look at the data centers will stipulate all of that.

Certainly.

There's, a unprecedented demand for for energy.

But this is I don't know what this is also.

This is also something.

This is also something, though, in Indiana, like, you hear lawmakers talk about this.

Indiana used to have one of the lowest utility costs in the country.

And that is and that affects not just residential Hoosiers, but businesses looking to locate here, businesses looking to grow.

They've cut deals for businesses to the extent to the detriment of residential users.

It will become a crisis on par with with, property taxes.

But why this is more complicated is perhaps a statement of the obvious.

Before you were dealing with one government entity talking about, the collection of dollars that go to another government entity.

It's sort of in the family.

Yeah, for a lot of lawmakers, it's much different to say now, even though these are, not free operating entirely, they are regulated monopolies essentially by the URC.

They still are the private sector.

And for a lot of lawmakers that is a bridge they don't want to cross.

At the same time, though, we saw legislation this session.

Now, this is probably not going to impact prices for a while.

But the small nuclear reactor stuff is, well, you can explore smears and you can spend money exploring SMEs.

And even if you don't end up building them, you can then pass those costs to a certain extent under your ratepayers.

And we've seen a bill similar to that in the past decade, where they've allowed utilities to be able to do more projects or research or upgrades to the transmission lines, and that is part of it, too.

We do have to remember affordability is important.

The utilities will tell you reliable is important, but we don't want to be Texas, who you know has major shutdowns all the time.

So they have to upgrade the grid.

And that's true too.

But I do think it's funny.

You know, we come out and we say state government needs to hold the line.

And we we pressure universities not to raise their do more with their tuition, do more with less.

But never once have I ever heard anyone say, encouraged by investor owned utilities to how about we just don't raise rates for a year or two?

How about that?

But then you'd have to cap the consumption of energy to data centers at some organizations have suggested should be put on.

These particular increases.

Ensure the data center conversation.

I don't even think we have one up and running right now.

So that's a future conversation too.

But I also think some smaller communities would rather make their own energy decisions and not go through the NRC.

And that's something that I've seen in a lot of rural counties, pushing back against the NRC and wanting to cultivate and craft their own deal that allows for their residents to have lower costs because they are being they're able to diversify their energy.

Yeah.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we pose an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is, should state lawmakers do more to help lower Hoosiers utility bills?

A yes or no?

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you whether you support the big federal tax and spending cut bill.

Just 12% of you say yes, 88% say no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to wfyi.org/i wire and look for the poll.

Well, the number of Indiana high schoolers who go straight to college has reached a record low.

From WFYI education desk, Dylan Pierce McCoy has more on why young people are skipping college and what it could mean for the state.

Just 52% of Indiana high school graduates went straight to college in 2023, a slight dip from the prior year.

The college going rate has been falling for nearly a decade.

The trend could lead to lower incomes for young people.

Workers with bachelor's degrees earn far more on average, than those with high school diplomas.

It's also a problem for the state.

The number of Indiana residents with bachelor's degrees is already among the lowest in the nation.

State research shows that young people and parents report the cost of higher education is the largest barrier for enrollment.

But state officials say that families vastly overestimate the actual cost of attending a public college in Indiana.

Whitley, is the value of a college education getting underplayed in Indiana?

I don't believe is getting underplayed.

I believe is getting rectified.

There was a time where they said, you go to school, you get a degree, you come out and you'll be able to make a living for yourself and have provisions.

It seems like the cost of education has risen, but the value of the degree has not.

And so you come out after spending 50, sometimes $40,000 in Indiana and you can't get a job, or you get a job making 25 to $35,000 a year.

And so then it becomes less about education and more about entrapment, or you seal and to death.

And so I think we need to really be pushing the idea that college isn't necessarily for everyone, that there are other avenues for you to go through, entrepreneurship being one of them, apprenticeship being another, as well as skills and trades.

But if it is for you, the problem really is the cost of education.

And I do want to give kudos to Mitch Daniels, who did not increase the tuition at Purdue.

But as an IU Bloomington alumni, that tuition is consistently going up.

And so as I'm thinking about when my daughter is going to go to school, we really need to look at making sure that colleges and universities are not squeezing the federal government to get more of that federal funding for students, putting them in greater debt.

And then they get out and they're not able to create a life for themselves.

And we did see all of Indiana's, public colleges and universities this year, at the urging of the Commission for Higher Education, hold the line without any tuition increases for the next year or even two.

so I think is this also an acknowledgment on higher ed as part of.

Okay, yeah.

In order to get more people to even show up in the first place, we need to try to do something to make it seem more affordable.

Part of this, it seems to me, as a communication problem, if if we don't have guidance counselors starting in freshman year, talking to children in school and their parents about what is affordable and why it's desirable, we're never going to meet that gap.

We've been told for years that are and we are at the bottom of the country in terms of the number of college graduates, and we've been told that's the kind of industry that we want to attract, requires education.

And we're counter, we're a counter.

purpose of purpose is right here.

So we really need to think through whether we're reaching those children early enough and then all the rest of that.

I mean, yeah, it's still, even though it's relatively less expensive to go to a state public school.

It's still beyond the means of a lot of people.

And we need to have those scholarships available.

And frankly, I've thought for years that the federal government should not be guaranteeing for profit institution loans.

I mean, they suck people into these places, telling them that they're going to make these fantastic salaries, they charge them outrageous tuition, and then they're never out of it.

I mean, I see I see 65 year olds with huge student loan debts because they start compounding interest on the day you show up for your first class and you never get out from under that.

So part of that is listening to what's out there on these places and the horror stories.

And the other part, it seems to me is, is telling students that there is educational opportunity available at a cost that makes sense, that they'll be able to repay based on the income they'll have when they graduate.

You know, to the point Whitley just made, I remember when I was in school, it was, oh, no, you're going to college.

You're getting a four year degree no matter what.

And now part of that was where I went to school in the type of high school I went to.

But it seemed like for years that was the message.

And the last several years here in Indiana and across the country, we've started to go, okay, we need to think about what's best for the individual students and making sure all of those pathways are viable for them in high school.

Has that message started to diminish the value of the college?

We've just gone too far both ways, right?

Like we were.

We were focusing to a detriment only on college and not to skills and trades.

And now we're focusing to a detriment.

It's almost like the message is you don't need college.

And it's maybe not for everyone, but it is a massive indicator to your long term, long term earnings potential and you know everything else that will go with it.

And so when I talk to younger people, because I have a younger daughter and they say one things like, you know, paid vacations and stuff, but you know, and just all the advantages that come, but you still have to put in the work, you have to go to college, you have to get a degree, you have to work hard and you build up to those things.

But they everyone seems to want them as a start.

Now, a part of this too, and this is something else that Indiana has tried to focus on.

Lawmakers have tried to focus on is not just going to college, it's also finishing your degree on time, because that also plays hugely into the cost of going to college.

Or even faster.

Or even faster.

You know.

We had degree in three, which was a program I think Ball State offered and was something that, Mitch Daniels had advocated as well.

I think that we're only looking at part of the equation when we talk about what, as you say, it's 52% now.

Yeah.

And that's is that up or down?

And what is it from year to year and what is it ten years ago.

And what does that suggest about, our workforce and its readiness to meet our economic needs of the coming century?

Let's not forget the rest of the country.

I know I'm sounding like a broken record.

Last topic I tried to broaden it to.

But there's no wall around Indiana that prevents Indiana born students from going to get jobs elsewhere, or vice versa.

The national average, compared to 52 here, is 62%.

And a lot of states, it's it's still much, much higher than that, as was suggested.

So I think we have to broaden the discussion and look at losing.

It's the old brain and talent drain discussion that the state has wrestled with for a long.

Time, but but can't.

Just look inwardly.

But for no shortage of incredible quality options for higher education in this state, I mean both public and private.

One other worrisome part of that equation is that the percentages are changing.

Many, many more women are going to college than men.

That's true.

And what does that mean and why?

And why aren't we reaching young men with the message that their earning potential would increase?

Also, the creative economy, right?

The young people these days, Gen Z are watching their fellow counterparts get wealthy, utilizing social media and building brands and becoming multimillionaires without going to school at all, but just capitalizing off the phone that they have.

And so you're going to have to incentivize someone, in the younger generation, to see why they would go into debt when they could just go live and start getting paid.

But there's there's a cap on that, too.

There's a.

Limit to.

MBA.

You know.

It's the idea of, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to make it big in the NFL.

Well, the percentage of people who actually actually do it and that's.

Same with fluid.

But YouTube micro creators are getting paid off.

That's true.

But I think I think I think part of the messaging has to be like, yeah, that does seem nice.

But it's also, I mean, you read stories about how challenging that life is, the idea of the paid vacation, how long it lasts.

So it's it's trying to make sure that they understand.

Well, you may think this is an option, but it's not maybe as glamorous as you think it is, or it's not as possible for as many people.

Maybe we need to deal with.

You talked about the notion that people don't want to work hard.

They just want the paid vacation and the flexibility and so forth.

Aspirational, yes.

But what happened to the notion of instilling some notion that you got to bust your butt first before?

You mean that maybe that's another issue?

I don't know.

Think that's a that even gets into the soft skills conversation that, that businesses have been talking about for a very long time, which is more and more early career or, you know, young people in their jobs to do this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Showing up on time.

All right.

Scholarships and student loan repayment, advanced core technology, small claims, court changes and expanded legal education.

Those are some of the recommendations of an Indiana Supreme Court commission tasked with facing the state's attorney shortage.

The Commission on Indiana's Legal Future released its final report this week.

The commission's report says the answer to the state's attorney shortage is not as simple as more lawyers.

Instead, it says it requires a complete reevaluation of how legal services are provided.

Some initial recommendations made last year and further potential solutions offered now would require funding.

And the commission says given state and federal budget issues, private and nonprofit sector funding sources must be explored.

But other recommendations include raising the monetary limit on what cases go to small claims court and thus don't require a lawyer.

The report also suggests judges could use AI based transcription and drafting tools to help streamline administrative tasks.

And it recommends improved legal education pipelines in high schools and undergraduate higher education programs.

Niki Kelly, do some of these changes risk undermining public confidence in the judicial system?

When you're talking about alternative paths to licensure and things like that.

I mean, maybe on licensure, but a lot of them, I thought it was actually a really well done report in that it, you know, it didn't just look at 1 or 2 options, it really did look outside the box.

The idea about small claims court, for instance, I mean, that amount hasn't been changed a long time.

Yeah.

Really.

And a lot of these small claims cases, I mean, I had to do a small claims case once against a landlord.

And so those are easily done without attorneys.

And so I really liked the report because it was very all encompassing.

It wasn't just we need to make it easier to get attorneys and pay back their loans and stuff like that.

They really did look at some other options.

And they acknowledged that, you know, several of these recommendations, both from last year in the initial recommendations and then the final report here, they would come with price tags.

But those aren't importantly, given the budget, climate right now aren't the only options.

Yeah.

I mean, there are a lot of things that could be done.

And to to echo the point, I think this is a good additional step to to think big, think creatively about how to solve things in a manner in a manner that doesn't necessarily have a dramatic, price tag.

you know, we've sort of, as a society, disparage the legal profession for a long time.

It gets to our theme today is, you know, we talk about the problems when they finally manifest, but what's bubbling underneath?

Laziness among a certain age groups or now it's just sort of a disparagement or, denigration of our of our justice system and our lawyers.

And, if there's a shortage, I would say, of lawyers in the state of Indiana, it's probably in the Indiana General Assembly.

you've been saying that for a long time.

I have been saying I may be the only person that says we don't need your lawyers, but I firmly believe it.

Well, to that end, to that, in this part, I mean, I think that the report, the commission kind of talked a little bit about this, but it's it's trying to to get out there and instill in people who are younger at the high school level and then up like, this is an important career and a valuable I mean, because I don't think there's a lot of people going, oh, yeah, we need more lawyers, but we actually need more lawyers.

And as someone who, went to McKinney and left, it was a very, very rigorous track.

And for someone who was working full time and a mother, it just wasn't feasible in that time.

And so I think that McKinney has been very agile with how they're responding by taking their part time program and actually making it a hybrid, where before I was in class from 5 to 9:00 every day, now it's hybrid where you're doing classes online, it's still ABA accredited.

But I do think that the report pointed out many different ways to be flexible and to provide access, not only for those interested in going into the legal field, but those engaging with the legal field.

Yeah, those are important.

And it's good that they're being flexible, but it's not going to get the people.

It's not going to get the lawyers into the communities where they're so desperately needed.

Yes, that's going to take the money for incentive for tuition and all to have public defenders and prosecutors in counties that are underserved, because the businesses that used to support those are gone.

And you don't have the 4 or 5 man or women law firms in county seats like that anymore.

So we need them.

And yes, I mean.

When you have the little area where there's no economic incentive, that's a bigger question.

It's a big problem.

In Indiana geared specifically towards the legal career and getting students into the legal career.

It is a charter school, and it is solely focused on those that may be interested.

Is brand new here.

but it's something for people to look at.

Well, that's.

Really that's fascinating.

I love that.

Figure, a way to get them to go to Rising Sun and these places that need that.

It would be terrific.

Now, Indiana is no longer moving forward with its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

Indiana Public Broadcasting's Rebecca Thiele reports.

Now that both the federal and state government aren't leading climate efforts, the challenge of addressing climate change in Indiana mostly falls to local governments.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management released the state's initial climate plan last year with the help of a grant from the Biden administration, and though it was passed over for an additional grant, the agency said it would still go through with the plan.

That all came to a halt in April, when the governor ordered the state not to further develop these climate plans without his consent or that of the state legislature.

Shannon Anderson, with Earth Charter Indiana, says implementing the plan would have improved Hoosiers quality of life, created jobs, and put more clean energy on the grid to serve the growing demand.

She says the state's lack of interest won't keep the climate from changing.

That doesn't change the flood water.

If that doesn't change the extreme weather, it doesn't.

Change the extreme.

Heat that we will experience.

Anderson hopes Indiana will find ways to integrate greenhouse gas emissions into other programs, like transportation.

Jon Schwantes, from the state perspective, state government perspective.

Is this just a budget issue?

We can't devote the resources to these kind of things.

Everything in this vein has a budgetary implication.

But to say that this is fiscal in nature, the opposition would be naive.

No, this is, driven by people who have long been skeptics of the notion of climate change.

never mind that 99% of science, thought this was, well established decades ago.

and and we just have to look outside or step outside and feel outside to, to see the results of that.

So, no, this is the pent up frustration on the part of people who love, beautiful, luscious coal.

I have nothing against coal, mind you, but, ultimately that is more expensive.

If you have the infrastructure in place for wind turbines and you have the solar panels in place, that's going to be cheaper in the long run, there's an expense to get there.

Yeah, but, for those who want to view those, renewables with suspicion or outright animosity, this is the chance to say we get we finally won the battle.

I mean, short term, at least.

Beyond the idea of, you know, weather becoming more severe, storms becoming more severe.

This is something that farmers are dealing with on a day to day basis in trying to manage their livelihoods.

Can the state afford to sort of ignore this issue in the way it seems to me?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't see this being an issue that the electorate's going to rise up about.

Honestly, there's a lot of skepticism on it.

And not only is there a lot of skepticism, but even if you agree and understand climate change and are fine with it, the fixes aren't easy, right?

And so to to, I guess embrace those is always going to be a hard fight.

And so, you know, we got a change in administration.

At the same time we have a fiscal crisis.

And it seems to me, you know, perfect sense over under those circumstances.

Because I think what a lot of utilities will then go back and say the hearkening back to the story at the top of the show is, well, yeah, we can do stuff to help bend this curve in the right direction, but it's going to cost you money, and we're going to pass those costs onto onto the ratepayer, which gets back against the problem that you were just working on.

So, it's it's a thorny issue that isn't going away anytime soon.

That's Indiana Week in review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Whitley Yates.

Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers.

and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week In Reviews, podcast and episodes@wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time because a lot can happen.

And then Indiana Week.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indian Weekend Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.