47 Comments - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 9:53 am: Supposedly, all this destructive nonsense in Springfield is about “creating jobs,” “promoting economic growth,” and “bringing back manufacturing.” Of course, the Rauner administration has been laughably and pathetically sketchy on how its “agenda” would do any of that. But the Bolsheviks at the Wall Street Journal had an excellent piece the other day on what works in promoting economic growth and bringing back manufacturing jobs outside the metro areas: State-supported higher education. Duh. How are we doing on that these days? Give it a read. It’s chock-fulla information you won’t find in the current “debate” in Illinois. http://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-an-antidote-to-americas-long-economic-malaise-college-towns-1481558522 - Loop Lady - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 9:56 am: Of all the stupid short sighted things Rauner us trying to do, I will never understand why he wishes to grind higher ed under his heel… - Honeybear - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:01 am: This probably isn’t going to make it out but I want to, in this season of Christian giving and kindness, the “malignant callousness” as wordslinger says, of republicans. This is an example. Sorry but it must be pointed out that republican extortion for corporate welfare which by their own numbers would only help 1.4 %, is destroying the college dreams of thousands of deserving young Illinoisans. I hope you allow this to be stated. - UISer - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:01 am: Working in higher ed, I will tell you this has a massive impact on students. The band aid of schools floating the bill (and hoping for reimbursement) is not going to hold forever. It is obvious that this Governor doesn’t value higher ed in the state and would prefer to see numerous public institutions close their doors, but this agenda is not only negativity affecting the staff, faculty and administration at these schools; it’s also a disaster for many of the students who have chosen to remain in Illinois for schooling. At this point I assume there won’t be a budget until 2019. - Anon - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:01 am: Iowa State non-resident spring 2017 full time tuition for most majors: $10,231 Total with fees: $10,899.70 That covers any course registered for from 12 credits on up. To register for more than 18 requires department adviser consent, more than 21 department adviser consent. http://www.registrar.iastate.edu/fees (First hit on google search, by the way) University of Illinois in-state spring 2017 tuition: $6,018 With fees: $7,849 (It took several minutes to find this having to navigate between multiple pages and click on multiple different charts and add the totals myself. It also gets a lot more expensive for a bunch of other majors, but there’s no one spreadsheet that’s easily found for easy comparison, but a different program can add almost a couple grand) Iowa State residents? $3,549 — for comparison. Illinois will get what it pays for. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:03 am: The Rauner Legacy is destined to be… The closing of Eastern Illinois University. The closing of Chicago State University. The loss of accreditation of Western Illinois University. The closing of a Southern Illinois University. The $1+ Billion (close to $800 million now) loss of funding to the flagship University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign. And… Bruce Rauner never ran for governor telling the voters of his purposeful plan to destroy the universities, and actually close state universities. None of the Higher Ed issues are accidental. No responsible Governor let’s this “play out” unless the play is to allow all this to happen. Oh! Charleston? Macomb? Urbana-Champaign? Edwardsville? Carbondale? You will be the biggest losers, and Rauner just doesn’t care… as some of you send Raunerites to Springfield. Yea! You showed yourselves! - Henry Francis - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:04 am: Well, the world needs ditch diggers too. https://youtu.be/eiRGRvE_Wqg - illini97 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:04 am: It’s heartwarming that the state was able to take care of Exelon. working into the night on revisions that are not yet fully understood but have been signed anyway. Now, about those universities rotting on the vine…are we going to do anything about that? - Anon - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:04 am: Oh — I should add. University of Illinois non residents? $13,829 for Spring 2017 without fees. You want to be an engineer? $16,331 without fees. Y’all done failed to raise enough revenue to remain competitive with your public institutions. - Honeybear - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:08 am: Ha ha ! Serves me right! I so thought my post wouldn’t make it that I didn’t bother to proof it! It should read “in this season of Christian giving and kindness, POINT OUT the…….. I can’t “get me no get right ” as they say here! - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:09 am: Our governor would probably say that not everyone should go to college. (In other words if you can’t afford it you shouldn’t go). This, if it is his belief, could only come from someone who never had to think about the cost of anything. - UISer - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:10 am: @Anon You do realize that the tuition increases are a direct result of the state not living up to the funding formula, right? Maybe do a bit more investigating into the state funding situation in Iowa prior to making a drive by accusation about higher ed in the state. - Union thug - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:11 am: Can we just get Bill Murray to be gov. At least he would be entertaining - Anon - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:11 am: ===Our governor would probably say that not everyone should go to college.=== They’ll just go to college in Iowa and Wisconsin. - Markus - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:12 am: Until K-12 is put at risk or we have a real government shutdown like the feds implement, this will not end until the 2018 election. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:13 am: ==they’ll just go to college in Iowa and Wisconsi== And they sure are! Of my child’s 8 close friends, only one attends the U of I. All stellar students but have lots and lots of options for the same or less cost. - Cubs in '16 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:17 am: ===They’ll just go to college in Iowa and Wisconsin.=== Or Indiana, or Missouri, or Kentucky, or…. My son has a year left at Community College before transferring to Indiana State. I didn’t insist he attend that particular school but I did insist he attend somewhere other than IL. With a transferring non-resident discount the tuition/fees will be about the same as most of IL’s public universities. - Scamp640 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:19 am: The disconnect between the ideology of some Rauner supporters and their own household fortunes is amazing and depressing. I know a Rauner supporter whose wife is a public university employee and whose healthcare plan comes through the university. He continues to support Rauner even though his healthcare premiums will double if the governor’s deal for AFSCME is implemented. And he will lose all of his healthcare (and half his household income) if his wife is laid off. I scratch my head. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:24 am: The New York Times has a great piece recently… http://nyti.ms/2gFfQwa From the link… “New Jersey has long struggled to draw students. It had the second largest net loss in students, after Illinois.” As Illinois refuses to fund Higer Ed, other universities make their schools easier for Illinois students to leave. - MSIX - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:24 am: = I know a Rauner supporter whose wife is a public university employee…= I know several public university employees who support Rauner. Go figure. - Dissuade - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:30 am: Rauner probably wants students to sign up for worthless online for profit schools instead of public universities. After the public schools aren’t able to stay open or maintain, if a student wants to stay in IL they may only have the choice of a for profit online school. - Obamas Puppy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:32 am: Education for Brucey ends when you graduate from a charter school. - jerry 101 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:44 am: ISU’s 2016 audited financial statements came out today. ISU is one of the healthiest universities in the state. Cash and investments at 6/30/16 fell by about $15 million compared to 6/30/15, while receivables increased by a like amount. ISU still has a very healthy net position and over $250 million in cash and investments, largely unrestricted, not to mention its Foundation, but this doesn’t seem like it will bode well for the less healthy universities. - jerry 101 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:44 am: Oops, link http://www.auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Compliance-Agency-List/ISU/FY16-ISU-Fin-Full.pdf - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 10:49 am: - jerry 101 -, Keep in mind, respectfully… Higher Ed should never be about state universities concerned that they are going to exist or not exist, or better or worse than another state university. Respectfully, what you’re pointing out is as scary as anything. In reality, your discussion is extremely pertinent, and shines a light how dire Rauner has put all state universities. - Former Hoosier - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:05 am: My daughter is a senior in high school. She’s a good student who along with others was named a State Scholar. She was accepted into the honors college at Indiana University and given a hefty scholarship. She intends to commit to IU. None of her friends even applied to state schools in Illinois. There is a huge brain drain going on here. Our top students are leaving the state and most will never return. - Cimry90 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:25 am: Former Hoosier, Your daughter’s story matches mine. She will enroll at Missouri State next fall as an honors student. As a result of her excellent ACT score, qualified for a scholarship that waived the out of state fees (savings of 7000) and awarded 5000 which knocked the annual cost from 23,000 (tuition, room and board) to 11,000. - up2now - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:34 am: Rauner has it in for universities because he views them as bastions of unionism and prevailing wages, and hotbeds of liberalism that infect students. Not to mention the pensions and benefits that go to employees. - illini97 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:41 am: Rauner wants the State to grow its way out of this hole. We need to Grow the Economy! One of Illinois’ strongest positions is educational attainment and excellent higher education institutions. That education brings high paying jobs with it. Why is Rauner so insistent on tanking one of Illinois’ strongest economic development advantages? - Hit or Miss - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:42 am: It looks to me that there will be a state budget at least until after the 2018 election (maybe longer). If I was running a college or university in Illinois, which I am not, I would not cover the lost state income. - Anon - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:43 am: ===You do realize that the tuition increases are a direct result of the state not living up to the funding formula, right?=== @UISer, I think you’re missing the mountains for the mole hills here. I’m not criticizing the University of Illinois system for having high tuition. I understand why the tuition is higher and that is not the fault of the University — it’s their lack of funding. Their lack of funding is directly related to the lack of adequate revenue. The lack of adequate revenue comes from decades of legislators lying to their constituents about the cost of services and then passing that buck on to millennials by creating things like the pension ramp, making them pay substantially more to attend state schools, and quite literally just refusing to raise enough revenue to pay their bills. In fact — if they’re old enough to be receiving their income as retirement, Illinois citizens can run out on the check for their services by getting to subtract their retirement income from taxation creating a very fun moral hazard. What fault to the Universities have in all of this? Quite a bit as their leadership has taken a very professional approach to this that does not involve applying grass roots pressure on the politicians that are destroying their institutions or making significant effort to explain to the body politic how their institutions are being destroyed by people that like to imagine that ‘cutting the waste’ will fix Illinois fiscal issues. Illinois has also created a very fun history of things like forcing Universities to accept students tuition free through the GA scholarship, or due to their national guard service without making any attempt to provide additional funds for it, which has effectively passed the cost of those programs onto the other students. So, not only do they have to pay for their own education, they get to cover the cost of folks the GA felt should be educated tuition free but weren’t willing to appropriate funds to pay for. It’s time for folks to become responsible, otherwise maybe it’s just time for folks that can to pursue better options than belonging to this specific civil society. - T Sowel - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:44 am: OW just as the night needs the day so your conclusions on Rauner’s legacy need a countervailing POV. Rauner’s IL Turnaround agenda ( the state is broke remember) is stalled due to the intransigence of a tiny minority of the state. The sacred cows of Workers Comp/Prevailing wage/pension reform and those that benefit by the status quo are the problem. - Signal and Noise - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 11:51 am: Chicago State already has it’s accrediting body circling above them because they have to be able to show they can financially sustain, and they can’t. - illini - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 12:01 pm: Against my better judgement, I did watch the 30 minute infomercial Tuesday and was struck by our Governors comments on education and the fact that he supported the U of I. I commented that it was commendable that his family foundation was extremely with the Ivy League and private schools but questioned how he had actually supported the U of I. I tried to follow up to a very creative response, but could not get it to post. Bottom line, our Governor is single handedly destroying destroying a top 20 National University, not to mention the other Regionals that face even more problems than my Alma Mater. Governors Own. He Does Not Care. - Higer Ed - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 12:16 pm: The Higher Learning Commission sent a letter recently to all the public universities. I’ve said it before but if an accreditation is pulled from a university, it’s not like you can get it back quickly. It’s a death blow and it’s looming, at least at most of the regional universities. This is playing out just as Rauner planned. Thanks for nothing Bruce! - filmmaker prof - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 12:33 pm: I do not doubt that many of you have children who have abandoned our state university, as have many of their friends. But I just wanted to point out these facts: U of I, Urbana had its largest freshman class ever this fall. And before you all jump to your keyboards and start typing China! in all caps, 74.6% of those freshman are from Illinois — an increase of 2-3% over the past two years. So, for whatever reason, UIUC is still seeing substantial in state enrollment. On the other hand, the Rauner Governorship has meant that tenure system faculty are leaving, so total number of faculty is dropping, meaning that the student to faculty ratio has shot up considerably. I also suspect that without a budget this year (which would mean 3 years of no pay increases), the faculty exodus will accelerate significantly. By the way, U of I President Tim Killeen got a $100,000 bonus this year. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 12:35 pm: - filmmaker prof - I was wondering, is with the lowering of admission standards the university announced? - Former Hoosier - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 12:51 pm: “I also suspect that without a budget this year (which would mean 3 years of no pay increases), the faculty exodus will accelerate significantly.” This is why I wouldn’t allow my daughter to apply to U of I. Once faculty start leaving, academic programs will suffer. U of I may not crash and burn like the directionals, but it will suffer significant harm. Students who have choices are going to continue to turn away from our state schools. - Rangerup - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 1:14 pm: Reading the comments, I’m reminded of a song I heard recently, whose lyrics must be “sanitized”: What you gonna do when it all blows up and goes to hell? Well, at my regional university — which may have sufficient funds to stay open through March, and doesn’t have the brand power or political connections of Chambana or ISU — the answer is pretty clear. Students not registering for spring semester, applications are dropping, younger faculty are leaving, faculty searches are failing, the real estate market is softening, retail sales are declining, and the nonacademic job market is shrinking. Yes, there are still plenty of hard-working students, staff, and faculty still here, but everyone feels it all folding in on us. Will the tipping point finally be reached? Will we inevitably be forced to surrender young people’s hopes and dreams on the altars of ego, selfishness and ideology? - Scamp640 - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 1:24 pm: @ film maker prof. The expanded enrollment at UIUC is a direct result of the lack of state support. UIUC lowered its entrance standards to attract more tuition-paying students to offset the lack of state financial support. This is NOT evidence of a good thing. This is a conscious strategy undertaken by UIUC to counteract the loss of funds. But note, they are selling their reputational capital to make up for the lost financial capital held back by the state. - illini - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 1:36 pm: Filmaker prof is exactly correct on all points. I had the numbers written but can not find them at the moment. The U ofI is not educating any fewer instate students, but foreign enrollment is up. And experienced faculty and researchers are leaving for better offers. Granted the $100.000 bonus may not sit well with some but he is still among the lowest paid in the Big 10 and several Million behind in compensation compared to Presidents of major Universities. And Willy, my friend, simply relaxing the minimum requirements for admission is no guarantee that they will be admitted into a program of their choosing. Try getting into the College of Engineering, or numerous other disciplines with a score of 23 - just doesn’t happen. The standards are still rightly high for many areas of study. - Signal and Noise - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 1:47 pm: Film maker - yes, so far the Flag Ship School, which is very expensive and very hard to get in to, hasn’t been hit hard. Now, how about the health and well being of the other 8 schools that serve the remaining parts of this vast state? They are all at varying levels of financial health but none of it is good. Also, for a Research University like U of I, student population is one thing. They are also losing out to Texas, Michigan and other research schools on lucrative federal grants, grants that bring in money, academic talent and prestige. So no, nothing is rosy here. - Loop Lady - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 2:13 pm: Signal and Noise has it right..,besides losing great students, I personally know several outstanding educators that have flown the coop from U of I campuses for other State Universities…UConn, MI, IN U to name a few… My son is in dental school at UIUC and is nickled and dimed to death by the administration due to lack of State financial support… - filmmaker prof - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 3:26 pm: I have nothing to do with admissions, but here’s the data that UIUC publishes. I’ll have to assume it’s true. Mean SAT for incoming Freshman: 2016-17 1368 2015-16 1360 2014-15 1372 2013-14 1344 2012-13 1337 2011-12 1315 2010-11 1304 and it continues to go down from there. So, while it is possible that UIUC is accepting more students with lower credentials (I have no idea if that is so), the students who are enrolling are actually getting higher test scores. usual disclaimers - filmmaker prof - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 3:28 pm: my last post just got censored, but the mean SAT score for incoming freshman has been consistently increasing over the decade. so there is no evidence that the students who are enrolling have lower test scores. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 3:44 pm: - filmmaker prof - With respect, It’s not what appears to be happening, but what the university itself is doing by losing admission standards and still not being fully funded to execute its mission(s) in education. Again, with respect. - X-prof - Thursday, Dec 15, 16 @ 5:14 pm: Actually, the published data reported by filmmaker prof paints a not so rosy picture. The pre-Rauner years show significant, monotone increases in mean SAT scores, averaging 17 points year-to-year, for an impressive total gain of 68 points over 4 years. This positive trend ends abruptly with the arrival of Rauner’s hostage taking and turn-around agenda. At best, the pattern of rising scores plateaus abruptly, or at worst, begins a period of decline (we need more data points to decide that). In short, there is strong evidence that the very positive trend in SAT scores at UIUC ended when Governor Rauner took office. Plot the numbers and see for yourself. Time will tell where the new trend is heading. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.