Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana started in 1963 as a vocational technical school in Indiana (the name derives from I. V. Tech), and in 1999 the school became a comprehensive community college as described at Inside Higher Ed in 2008.
Ivy Tech (at one time known as Indiana Vocational Technical College) had long focused on vocational and technical education, and it joined with Vincennes University in 1999 in an effort to build a system of two-year colleges that would focus on general education and transfer as well as technical training. That partnership largely fell apart in 2004, though, and Ivy Tech became the sole sponsor of the community college effort.
The state of Indiana had lacked a community college system, and regional campuses that were part of Purdue University or Indiana University offered many two-year associates degrees. Despite an effort from state officials to move two-year degrees to community colleges, the four-year colleges resisted this effort.
And by and large, the transition did not occur. Despite the (vague) language in the proclamation [from 2001], part of a broader “Campus Compact” in which the Indiana Commission on Higher Education sought to improve coordination among state colleges, relatively little changed. The declaration said that four-year institutions could continue to offer a small number of degrees that were consistent with their missions, and Indiana’s regional four-year campuses clung ferociously to associate degrees that brought them students and the associated tuition revenue that came with them.
Finally, in 2008 the vast majority of associate’s degrees for the state of Indiana were shifted to Ivy Tech, which was on a path to expansion. Paul Fain concluded: