What’s a budget anyway?
Every two years, the Indiana Statehouse passes a budget bill, for everything in Indiana that gets state funding, Ball State included. This is called the House Appropriations Bill. Any money given to the university could be called an appropriation, or an allocation. Ball State’s funding comes in a number of ways. The biggest is the operating budget, which is spent by the university. After the operating budget, there are other, smaller things the state provides money for and these are called line item funds, which can only be used for their specific reason.
| Year of bill (passed every two years) | Amount given to “Entrepreneurial College” |
| 2007 | $1 million |
| 2009 | $960,000 |
| 2011 | $2.5 million |
| 2013 | $6.5 million |
| 2015 | $2.5 million* |
*This is the projected budget allocation for 2015. It has not yet been passed. $3.5 million of this appropriation was added to the general operating budget, so it is not a decrease.
Source: Biennial budget records from the Indiana state legislature
Before President Paul Ferguson’s State of the University Address, in which he spoke of Ball State as an “entrepreneurial” university, the Indiana state government had already been recognizing Ball State as the only university with an item of funding called “entrepreneurial college.”
That singular recognition in funding continues and will become more permanent under the proposed budget in the works at the Statehouse.
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education recommended $3.5 million of the $6.6 million “entrepreneurial college”line item funding be moved into Ball State’s general budget allocation. This means the university can count on that money more dependably every year, instead of it being approved year-by-year, Bernie Hannon, Ball State treasurer said.
Hannon said although no new funds have been added but it shows Ball State is being recognized by the Statehouse for its unique approach to learning.
“We consider that to be good news,” Hannon said. “[It is] recognition of the university’s ongoing entrepreneurial efforts and mission.”
The line item funding goes back to 2003, when the state gave Ball State just over $2 million over two school years for “Entrepreneurship/Comm.Dev.Pl.Inst.”
That money was not just for the entrepreneurship but also for another idea that was being explored, said Julie Halbig, Ball State’s liaison for governmental relations.
In 2005, there was no extra funding. The shape of the current line item took form when it entered the budget in 2007; the Statehouse gave Ball State the extra money directed to “entrepreneurial college,” for $1 million.
Ball State was recognized at the time for its entrepreneurship program in the Miller College of Business, said Julie Halbig, Ball State’s liaison for governmental relations.
“That’s when the idea [of] making it eligible no matter what college [students] were going through [they] could also get an entrepreneurship minor whether [they] were studying history, psychology or fine arts,” she said.
The funding has stayed in the budget since then and has been a source of funding growth, while overall funding to Ball State decreased. In 2011 the appropriation increased to $2.5 million and in 2013, $6.6 million, which is what the amount was this year.
As the funding grew, it also funded other “entrepreneurial” approaches to education, into what is now seen as “immersive learning,” Hannon said.
Those entrepreneurial approaches are connected to what campus recognizes as "immersive learning."
“We have expanded the use of those funds,” he said. “Not just to business, but to things like immersive learning [and] expanding our online programs and the type of classrooms we build. It’s taking a new entrepreneurial approach to learning and teaching and we put some of those line item funds towards [those things].”
Halbg said she hopes the Commission will continue to support the approach as Ball State moves forward.
“We certainly hope to show the state how we’re using this money and how we think it’s being effective,” she said. “We think we are turning out students with degrees that are innovative and creative in their thinking and can have a real impact on the state and hopefully will stay in Indiana.”
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