Fabian Abebo and Aren Owens are friends, freshmen who shared the same lunch table at North Central High School. But one thing they don’t share is the same opinion of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ plan that will allow some students to skip senior year and go straight to college.
Abebo would like to be one of them.
“I’ll get a better chance to go to college,” she said. “It will help me pay for it.”
But Owens says it’s not for him.
“I want to stay for my senior year and graduate with my class,” he said. “You can’t take back your senior year of high school. That’s your best year.”
When the Indiana legislature passed the budget at the end of April, it also launched Daniels’ plan, which allows high school students who complete their core requirements by the end of their junior year to skip senior year and go straight to college.
Money the state would have spent on senior year will become scholarship money: $6,000 to $8,000 for most students, depending on their school district.
