28 Comments - 47th Ward - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:24 pm: And it doesn’t cover housing/meals or other expenses. Also, it says in order to qualify as at or below the income/asset level, you need to be from a family that earns $61,000 or less, but also one with less than $50,000 in total assets. That might be one reason so few students will qualify. - Anon - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:29 pm: Why go in state when it’s cheaper to pay out of state at any number of schools which do a better job of funding higher education, and all of your friends are there too? If the people of Illinois want nice universities, they’re going to have to stop transferring the cost of them to broke millennials with guaranteed federal financing. - Scamp640 - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:31 pm: There is has been two decades of bipartisan disinvestment in Illinois Higher Education. If Illinois politicians want to retain young people, they need to make tuition for public higher education lower than in neighboring states. This will not occur through cuts. It will take actual investment and taxes dollars to pay for this. The population of people under the age of 20 in Illinois is actually shrinking — even in metro areas. The out-migration of young people may well be the biggest issue confronting the economic well-being for the future of Illinois. But neither party is serious about this. They should be. - Dupage Bard - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:36 pm: $31-36k/yr with room and board, in state tuition at U of I. Maybe make in state tuition more affordable then you can keep more kids here instead of just giving away tuition to a small few. Other states are throwing money at suburban kids to go out of state. U of I is charging full boat to suburban kids. How does this change any of that? - Anon - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:36 pm: Why is it that the actual solution to all of Illinois problems involve more revenue? And why do we continue to tolerate a Governor that lies about that? - Confused - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:41 pm: Am I missing something? Where are you getting the 250 students? I hope you’re not just dividing the $4,000,000 the university is setting aside by the $16,000 of tuition. The published tuition numbers represent maximums, and how much you actually pay depends on your income. Anyone making $61000 or less and having no more than $50,000 in assets is already paying quite a bit less than $16000 in tuition. It seems quite likely to me that, especially since room and board aren’t covered, there will be no cap on the number of students covered by this new policy, and that the university anticipates losing less than $4,000,000 in revenue when it is implemented. - City Zen - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:41 pm: UIUC is still turning away the Cook and collar county smart kids whose not-wealthy parents paid through the nose for their public education. Until that is remedied, enrollment will not improve. - ChrisB - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:50 pm: I’m no David Mamet, but I imagine the conversation went like this: 2018 UIUC Prex - “Hey guys, we’re losing a bunch of kids to out of state schools. They’re saying it costs to much to stay in-state. Got any ideas?” Admissions - “Well, we’ve heard rumors of these things called ’scholarships’ where we, get this, pay for a student’s tuition.” 2018 UIUC Prez - “So instead of students taking out massive loans and handing that money straight to us, we pay them to come here? That’s crazy talk.” Admissions: “No no, no. We don’t pay anyone anything. We just don’t charge them. And due to our massive size, the marginal cost is practically negligible.” 2018 UIUS Prez: “You guys are geniuses. Let’s fire up a pilot program. While we’re at it, hire three administrators to manage these scholarships. But restrict it so that we don’t have too many people asking for them. Can’t be giving out free learning.” - Anonymous - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:52 pm: And anyone wonders why the middle class is shrinking? They pay full fright for everything. But no one cares about that apparently. Plenty of help for lower income folks. We’re told we should feel lucky that we can pay (as we sell off our homes, wait 15 years to buy a replacement car). Illinois has missed the boat with this. - Anonymous - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:54 pm: If it’s true that ILlinois tuition, room and board really is $31-36K per year for residents, then I won’t feel bad about Iowa’s increased out of state costs. Still a bargain after 2 kids, 8 years later. No problem getting good jobs here in Illinois after Hawkeye living. - Red Ranger - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:56 pm: City Zen is correct. The “cap” on students UIUC puts on quality larger suburban high schools is a big driver of the outflow. Indiana, Iowa, Mizzou and now Alabama are the biggest winners of the “cap” system put in place by UIUC - PublicServant - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 12:57 pm: It’s not only costs that are driving students out-of-state, it’s employment assistance. The University of Cincinnati, where I send my daughter, has some highly ranked programs, but its key selling point is it’s co-op program that’s built right in to many of its majors. Full-time employees work with companies who value participation in the program, and those same employees aid the students with resume-writing, the interview process, and co-op tracking during the co-op. When my daughter graduates this coming May, she’ll have close to 1.5 years of experience with major firms in her field of study. Granted, this experience comes at the cost of a 5 year degree, instead of a 4 year college degree, but if you graduate in 4 years and can’t get a job, that piece of paper is next to worthless. My son graduated from UIUC with a masters in Aerospace Engineering. UIUC has nothing like the UC co-op program. They have a job fair, or two, where students, only available over the summer, pass their resumes to several companies, maybe have an interview or two with the actual company reps at the job fair if they’re lucky, but all this is on the students to do during the term when they’re being hammered by the coursework, studying to do well on exams, etc. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for the summer-only internship search that most students at UIUC are looking for. To attract students, creating a vibrant co-op program like UCs is the way to go. Students take these co-ops all semesters because it’s built right into their program, and the participating firms have a steady stream of cheap talent to get to know, and utilize in their business all year round. Platonic learning is not very financially satisfying. These students need jobs upon graduation, not just a piece of paper. - Ron Burgundy - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 1:05 pm: So what this amounts to is more need-based aid at a school where pretty much all of the aid is already need-based. So, lower income households will continue to get high percentages of aid, high income households won’t need any, and everyone in between doesn’t benefit one iota from this. - Saluki - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 1:23 pm: No good deed goes unpunished in the comments section of a blog. - 47th Ward - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 1:26 pm: ===there will be no cap on the number of students covered by this new policy,=== Not to quibble with you confused, but let’s face it, there will be a cap. Not because the money will run out, but because the way this is designed means few students will actually qualify. Assuming new students only, to qualify the first step isn’t meeting the income limits, it is meeting U of I’s strict admissions standards, which for Illinois public high school graduates probably is close to Top 5% of class combined with a 27+ ACT score. Low income kids with that kind of academic ability can usually go anywhere they want to go because many private universities have already offered them free rides. Unless UIUC wants to lower its admission standards for Illinois kids, and moreover, for low-income Illinois kids, this isn’t going to move the needle in terms of providing new access to college for low income, high-achieving students. It might make one or two reconsider Illinois, but not a whole lot more. - Roman - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 1:47 pm: I don’t think we’re focusing on the crux of the problem. The U of I system has experienced steady enrollment growth at each of it’s three campuses during the past two decades. UIC set a record for freshmen enrollment last year and UIUC has the second highest percentage of in-state students in the Big Ten. That’s not to say U of I isn’t losing good students to other states, but the outmigration of Illinois students is a much, much bigger problem at the so-called directionals — that’s where enrollment has crashed. The new AIM HIGH program is a good start (so is having a state budget in place,) but more has to be done. Without more support from the legislature, the directionals are going to struggle to offer competive tuition — which is the whole ball game for them. - Anonymous - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 2:15 pm: Lower income students bring in federal PELL dollars and State dollars with MAP (if they apply in time) so you need to calculate that into the numbers for the number of students served. It isn’t simply dividing the estimated cost by tuition price. - Loop Lady - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 2:16 pm: Besides this measure consisting of too little too late, it doesn’t touch on the fact that most of the best of the academics have fled to other states long ago for better pay…Rauners meager funding agenda and lack of a budget for two years exacerbated a no win situation…. - Ron Burgundy - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 2:21 pm: 47th’s points are good ones. This doesn’t provide substantial relief to a small subset of students who can’t get such a good deal elsewhere. What it does is to match the already good deals they are receiving elsewhere due to their income and credentials. - UrbanaBill - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 2:24 pm: Confused is correct - the News-Gazette coverage does a better job of explaining it. http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-08-27/uis-answer-sticker-price-free-tuition-offer-19.html PublicServant makes some great points about co-op and work experience. The research park at UIUC does some of that, but smart companies looking for motivated employees should do more. Some companies offer a summer internship after undergrad then pay a stipend during grad school and have you work on special projects. - Archpundit - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 2:54 pm: ===It might make one or two reconsider Illinois, but not a whole lot more. I’m guessing here, but what the university is trying to do is get the students to express interest after they or their parents hear and then show them the options they have. It won’t change the overall numbers dramatically, but it helps UIUC compete for students with that background. - SHARKETTE - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 3:55 pm: IL should reduce it’s secondary schools, they over lap have redundant admin overhead, and the top 50 pensions in IL we all pay for, starting around 500k I think it is a retired school admin as are the next 49 retirees. We can;t afford these types of pension costs, nor do we need more taxing bodies. We need less than the 7000 we have. 8 taxing bodies on my property tax bill paying their pensions, I can’t afford to save for my own. We need to consolidate secondary educational institutions in IL we do not need the number we have nor the costs to run them with out the populations to fill them, nor the tax dollars to pay the ever rising pension and health care costs - Demoralized - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 3:57 pm: Sharkette You really need a nap. Or at least a course on making coherent comments. - Captain Illini - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 4:54 pm: As my moniker denote, a proud alumni of the U of I, but my daughter is going to Kansas State for the same reasons all the other Illinois kids are…lower tuition even out of state, great school. If Illinois wants its kids back, how about an in state tuition that lures you back rather than push you away. Pathetic. - Anon - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 6:40 pm: This will be of marginal value. Focused on low income students, without addressing room and board seems insufficient. The greater loss are students of parents who, like me, make slightly too much for need based federal aid. Other state schools and most private schools become cheaper than Illinois. That won’t change. - swILL - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 7:37 pm: Kids will continue to flock to Alabama, Ole Miss, Iowa, Murray State, and Mizzou. - Anonymous - Monday, Aug 27, 18 @ 9:01 pm: Illinois has missed the point here. It’s families that don’t qualify for help in Illinois that send their kids to universities in other states that DO give merit scholarships (the brightest and best Illinois high school students not average ones, by the way). It’s middle class families, not low income families that need help to keep their high achieving students in this state. - In Urbana - Tuesday, Aug 28, 18 @ 11:30 am: This is a problem that built up over decades, not years. As noted above, U of I enrollment hasn’t really been a problem. It continues to grow. The state and the public universities are finally doing some things that should help address the problem. This latest announcement from UIUC is just one of them. As to the anonymous comment above on merit scholarships, the governor just signed legislation last week to establish a new program there, half funded by the state, half funded by the universities. U of I has also frozen tuition for the last few years, and plans to do so for at least two more years. All of these are small steps, but will hopefully make an impact over the next several years. Here’s a story on the merit scholarships: https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/new-legislation-aims-to-keep-illinois-students-in-state-for-college Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.