Daniels has had rocky relationship with higher ed officials

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Governor Daniels will be taking the helm of one of the state's flagship public institutions during a difficult time for higher education in our state.

Public universities have been forced to contend with steep cuts in state funding - cuts mandated by the governor himself. His 2009 budget slashed state funding for higher education by $122.5 million, and he carved out $58 million more last year.

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"I find it ironic with the cuts in public education and higher education of millions of dollars - that now he (Mitch Daniels) has to endure some of that pain of other college presidents in the years to come," said Democrat Greg Porter, the ranking minority member of the House education committee. 

Porter strongly opposed the cuts. 

"We have the pain of raising tuition for our students probably above the inflation rate," he said. 

He's right. The rate of inflation from 2008 to 2012 was 6.7 percent. But Purdue students have seen their tuition rate soar 8.5 percent since 2008. At Indiana University, tuition jumped 8.1 percent during the same period. 

Despite that, Jerry Bepko, a state commissioner of higher education, believes Daniels is a great choice for Purdue.

"Our governor has extraordinary capacity for leadership, and I think many of his good friends and political supporters across the country thought he'd be a very good president of the United States because of his strength as a leader," Bepko said.

Bepko, a Daniels' appointee, knew the governor long before he was governor.

"He's a very very intelligent person. I found that out when he was a student because he was a student in two classes that I taught here at the Law School the McKinney School of Law (of Indiana University)," said Bepko.

He added that while he hated to see the state cuts to higher education, he believes the governor navigated the economic crisis better than governors in most states.

On this, both Bepko and Porter agreed: Daniels will now have to put into play at the university level his government mantra of doing more with less.