Indiana legislators are considering a bill to eliminate college degrees that don't exist.

Senate Bill 199 would force public colleges to cut any major where graduates earn less than high school grads — except there are no such majors in Indiana. It's a perfect example of copy-paste legislation that's become the new norm for Indiana politics.

The best research on college major earnings comes from Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, which tracks 152 majors (see https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/major-payoff/). The story is unambiguous: The median graduate in the worst-paying college major earns more than the median high school graduate. The lowest-paid entry-level workers — in zoology, counseling, communications disorders and theology — earn between $37,000 and $40,000 per year. Indiana's median high school graduate earns roughly $32,000.

And that data is misleading because most of these workers attend graduate school. The median salary for a zoology major with a graduate degree is $129,000 per year, and 25% earn more than $245,000. Even much-maligned majors pay well: Early-career graduates in "Area Ethnic and Civilization Studies" earn a median salary of $49,000, philosophy $46,000 and history $46,000.

To be honest, I don't know how state legislators, the Indiana Commission on Higher Education, or university trustees could be unaware of these facts. Maybe none of this is about actually cutting low-wage degrees or learning something about the composition of college graduates. Maybe this is just kabuki theater.

As is common these days, this legislation was written outside of Indiana by a think tank with little connection to the state. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability has marketed it around the country as a tool for making government more efficient.

The FGA uses this type of policy activism to raise money. Its approach in this case is to find a fictional problem, write legislation that can pretend to solve it and then pitch it to legislators who want to be known for passing bills.

Indiana is a prime target, most likely because we have so little active policy research from think tanks on the right or left. Much legislation comes to Indiana this way instead of bubbling up from advocates and researchers within the state.

Another example is Senate Bill 88, which mandates teaching the "success sequence" of education, marriage and children. It comes from the Institute for Family Studies. It's worth noting that the teen birth rate in Indiana has dropped by half in the last decade, and high school graduation is at a record level. It's hard to imagine what problem this legislation is designed to fix. Has anyone ever heard a parent suggest to their daughter that she should drop out of high school and get pregnant?

IndyStar's Kayla Dwyer wrote an excellent piece on these copy-paste bills. There is research suggesting they are less successful in achieving their policy aims than bottom-up legislation focused on solving actual problems.

For the record, I think it is perfectly fine for legislators to remove funding from low-paying college majors and that teaching kids to graduate, work and marry before having children is a great thing to repeat to young people. But, by succumbing to the model legislation approach, we miss a chance to think through precisely how we might spend money more effectively.

For example, the wage issue is almost precisely the wrong metric to consider when thinking about a college degree. There's an opportunity cost in attending college — four years of missed earnings — and out-of-pocket expenses for tuition and books. All of that is borne right away, and the benefits come later. The appropriate measure of a college degree isn't the salary boost alone, but the long-term return on investment.

This would be a very uncomfortable issue in Indiana. The low teacher salaries mean that an education degree has the lowest ROI in Indiana. This is something prospective teachers should know when considering where to work.

Indiana's adoption of the FGA's model legislation would certainly be highlighted in its annual report, and it would also be touted by its sponsor in Indiana and cause a few dozen university administrators to compile yet another report for the legislature. The one thing it would not do is save money in the state's hard-pressed colleges and universities.

The same effort spent on understanding the ROI of majors and explaining that to kids (and fellow legislators) would've been far more effective. The same is true with Senate Bill 88. Knowing it’s good to finish school, get a job and marry before having children is not a problem — kids know this strategy. Most third-grade teachers can predict high school dropouts among their students. That's the time to intervene.

Young people who have kids before marriage aren't ignoring advice — they're responding to policies that punish marriage. Getting married means losing health coverage, hitting benefits cliffs and paying higher taxes.

I find it discouraging that state legislators rely so heavily on copy-paste legislation, but I'm even more discouraged that its widespread use is missing so many real challenges our state faces.

Note: The views expressed here are solely those of the author, and do not represent those of funders, associations, any entity of Ball State University, or its governing body.