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Tuition (at Illinois’ universities) has risen 40 percent since 2002 as the state’s support of higher education dropped 13 percent.

Wow.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 7:30 am

Comments

This is an old Blago-Tusk-Filan favorite. You get to cut funding to the universities and attack them as bloated institutions. THEN - you then force them to raise tuition and you get to attack them again for raising tuition. As far as Governor Press Conference is concerned it’s a win-win-win. Cut money, attack, attack attack. Not to mention that attacking the universities polls very well, just ask Karl Rove.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 10:41 am
Look at the numbers. The universities are using their losses to justify increases way beyond the cuts. When they were getting more from the state, they were still raising tuition.

I believe that education, including higher education is the most important public service that we can provide, but the universities are out of control and way beyond their mission.

Blago is correct to attempt to put them under the microscope.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 2:17 pm
I think you’re right that higher-education ought to be under the microscope. I agree with that.

But Blago (or any of his appointees) is not qualified to be peering down the microscope. Blago is one of the dimmer bulbs I’ve seen in government. Clinton he ain’t, and no brow-furrowing, sleeve-rolling, and tough-talking is enough to convince that Blago is anything more than the almost fractional sum of his out-of-state advisors.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 2:47 pm
I’ve looked at the numbers. The state’s contribution to higher ed has remained the same while university health care costs, utility costs and inflation have gone up, up, up. The only way universities can make up that general revenue loss is with higher tuition, as the donations they get from alumni and from endowments typically goes for specific purposes.

You want to run state govt. like a business? Well every year costs go up for businesses so you have to put more money into operating them or you don’t run them as effectively after a while.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 4:35 pm
Did the Guv graduate from the George Bush school of liars? Don’t forget who put Arnuld in the CA Guv’s mansion: a sightless Gray Davis and a useless and idle state Democratic party leadership!

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 4:42 pm
Don’t forget the “Truth in Tuition” law passed in 2003, which guarantees that freshman will not see their tuition hiked during their four-year stints. This bill forced the U’s to hike tuition to the average of what they project it will have to be over the four years. As Universities are risk-adverse (like most of us), they are likely to overestimate their future revenue needs.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Feb 22, 05 @ 12:12 pm
This increase is appalling. Shame on the universities! This is blantent gouging and unfortunately it hurts those who need education most- those lower on the socio-economic ladder.

And incredibly fiscaly irresponsible that universities can’t put themselves under the microscope of streamlining and cost cutting that is taking place throughout the public and private sectors.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Feb 22, 05 @ 1:29 pm
Look, College is expensive. It always has been. UI is over $8k per year for tuition and fees. So, go to community college for two years. Work like a dog during the summer save some money. Work part time the rest of the year. Don’t get a cell phone, don’t get a car, don’t get cable. Don’t get high-speed internet access. Eat ramen noodles from ALDI for lunch and dinner every day. Don’t buy a new laptop. AND don’t drink the $5 coffee. Two years at UIUC will cost about $36k according to their website assuming their costs. SUV’s cost more. Stop the whining. Take out the loan, take ten years to pay it off. Study hard, and get a good job. Thousands of us have done it. College isn’t easy for most people, both in the classroom and in the pocketbook. The problem with costs is that to stay in the top tier of schools you have to offer better food in the dorms, lots of odd clubs, ultra cheap high speed net access, etc. AND pay profs more money each year. Universities would be awful if they were run like a business. Imagine how awful college would be if it were run by Wal-Mart or Menards.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Feb 22, 05 @ 8:26 pm
These are PUBLIC universities, not private universities. Your argument doesn’t really hold water.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Feb 22, 05 @ 10:30 pm
Streamlining in education doesn’t work very well. One can eliminate faculty secretaries that type papers, but, well that already happened.

The point is that efficiency in business is gained from technological gains. You can’t use technology to effectively teach more students in most cases. Relatively low student-professor ratios are necessary if you plan on teaching students how to do important stuff like write well.

Most efficiency gains in academia are made in publishing where microcomputing has increased scholarly output tremendously, but no one notices because it isn’t a common deliverable that Lege Members and the Governor look at.

But you can’t teach 50 students as well as 25 nor can you do it as well by computer regardless of what diploma mills like Phoenix claim.

Look at a similar field–health care where doctor and nurse ratios have to be maintained regardless of the technological gains–it increases faster than inflation as well because efficiency gains are elusive.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Feb 23, 05 @ 10:41 am
You are right, Rich. So, we the public, need to get control. The universities expect pulic money, but no accountability.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 23, 05 @ 1:47 pm
So what would that accountability look like? The problem here is that everyone wants to discuss things based on outrage and not the actual costs of running a university.

If you think there is a ton of waste at the local university, what specifics would you eliminate?

As a hint, most educational institutions have their money spent on human resources including salary, benefits and other employee maintenance programs. I’m sure there are silly divisions at some schools or wasteful practices, but that is far different than some sort of blanket problem with the level of funding.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Feb 23, 05 @ 3:52 pm
Yes, Rich they are public universities that is why they are a great bargain. Compare UIUC at $8k for tuition to some private schools: Tuition ONLY

Northwester $29,940
Illinois College $14,600
Loyola $21,780
DePaul $19,700

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 23, 05 @ 9:53 pm
That’s an unfair characterization of private colleges. Using only 5 out of a hundred or so. There are dozens of small and medium sized private colleges in Illinois who do a much better job for barely more than the U of I costs. Besides, without them we’d be screwed there are more than 200,000 students in private colleges in Blagoland. They take kids the U of I turns away.

Also - you can attack the tug of war over subsidies and tuition costs, but there is no denying that Blago’s cuts have increased class sizes, reduced student aid (MAP grants to needy students are down by more than $1,000 per grant over four years prior) and hurt faculty and students, not administrators. My department has lost good faculty each of the last two years and studens will suffer in the long run AND there are plenty of high-paid cats on all those campuses still.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 24, 05 @ 9:45 am
ArchPundit,

The mission of the public universities is to educate, right? For that we need faculty and classroom buildings.

I would eliminate peripheral services and non-instructional projects like entertainment options, transportation systems, etc. and concentrate on the mission.

An example of expenditures beyond mission can be found here.
http://www.news-gazette.com/localnews/story.cfm?Number=17731

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 24, 05 @ 10:45 am
Great, so the Fighting Illini will no long exist. While an individual project may be a problem and I don’t know enough about this one, are you against student athletics?

Before claiming they bring in money, they don’t. But more importantly, do you view educational institutions as trade schools or do you actually think that a liberal arts education has value?

I’m not sure what an entertainment option is in contrast to a cultural option. Should there not be concerts on college campuses (paid by student activity fees–not tuition)?

Is getting rid of campus transportation a good idea on campuses as spread out as the U of I? Do you want to build that much more parking?

The slogan approach to budgeting makes people feel better, but it doesn’t have substance to it, but I’m happy to hear you don’t just want to get rid of the Chief, but the entire sports program.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Feb 24, 05 @ 3:17 pm
ArchPundit,

I am not a strict libertarian. I believe it is okay and desirable for a group to get together, decide upon a service which is beneficial to all, and all pitch in to pay for it. I believe that education is probably the most important public service that we can provide.

However, higher education, like all other public entities have grown beyond their mission.

There is nothing wrong with entertainment, including competitive athletics. However, should it be publicly paid for? I submit that these things (entertainment options) should rise and fall on their own merits in the private sector.

Since resources are not unlimited, all of these add-ons are taking away from providing a quality liberal arts education.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 24, 05 @ 5:06 pm
But you are missing a pretty important point–the entertainment that I think you are referring to is mainly paid out of student fees that students control through their student government. There are exceptions with departmental run programs–but I think it’s hard to say that a music and theater department don’t have ‘entertainment’ functions in their educational mission to some degree. Regardless that isn’t that much money in terms of overall costs and increasing costs. And it’s true that they have to pay for it, but it is a cost that is chosen by those on campus and it’s not increasing like tuition.

Tuition and general funds the universities receive from the states do pay for athletics–hence the example.I don’t know the case at Illinois, but often transportation is paid for out of activity fees too (UM-Saint Louis is a case where Metrolink passes are subsidized from that account).

So, the things you are pointing out aren’t the culprits in this case. Fees amount to $765/semester this year. That isn’t nothing, but it isn’t increasing at the rate and the students have a say in it (strictly speaking the Board decided, but student government and student votes are heavily considered).

Amongst those fees that are most questionable is the service fee, but the other fees are important.

The health fees are essential on a campus—students living that close come up with issues that have to be dealt with and tracked–think meningitis.
http://www.oar.uiuc.edu/current/pop_fees_sp05.html

These are in comparison to things like athletics (that I support) that are subsidized by general funds.

But the basic point is that the core services of a university–especially a world class one like U of I–are incredibly expensive and as a public university, we owe it to students with the demonstrated ability to attend to make it affordable–it benefits us all.

Or you can have a Mizzou where everyone thinks their kids are getting a good education depending upon how the football team does.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 9:41 am
ArchPundit,

In very round numbers the total expenses for the 12 public university campuses in Illinois is $5 billion. I would say about $400 million of that is mandatory fee for auxiliary service revenue, of which about half is paid for directly by the state (financial aid).

I submit that that $200 million per year would hire a lot more faculty and help upkeep classroom buildings which would be a better use of public funds.

If students want to get together and implement a fee, that is their right, but it should be outside of the university administrative structure.

I think we just disagree on desirable public expenditures.

(Perhaps you support Poshard and Simmons baseball stadium trough-slurping, too?)

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 10:25 am
No, we have a fundamentally different view of what education is. The larger point I’ve made is that education isn’t only classrooms and professors. One of the great mistakes people make is buying into the idea that a university is a trade school that teaches a specific skill so students can ‘make money.’

A university isn’t designed to teach a skill, but to teach one how to address challenges and overcome them through critical thinking.

The mistake people make in this idea that a university is geared towards lecturing in a classroom only is an example of when we fail at within a university system. Part of learning leadership is the extracurricular activities and opportunities. If you want students to be able to apply the abilities they are learning in the classroom, you need the other venues for them to be used.

Most troubling is that you can’t actually offer up specific numbers of what specific programs to which you are opposed.

Where specifically are your numbers from? I know where the $5 Billion comes from, but that doesn’t addres what auxiliary service revenue and what it covers. It’s impossible to discuss whether something is justified if you can’t be explicit in what you support and what you don’t support.

The logical result of your argument, by the way, is that poor students will have fewer opportunities outside of the classroom than wealthier students reinforcing class barriers to success already reinforced by such institutions as the Greek System.

Going back to my earlier point though–intercollegiate athletics in the form of supporting infrastructure are one of the biggest costs in the fee structures at universities. If you want to reduce the extras, that’s where one would start.

Nearly half of fees have an athletic tie at ISU which has a similar fee rate to U of I:
http://www.comptroller.ilstu.edu/studentaccounts/newrateschedule044_undergrad.stm

The direct subsidies to the athletic program come out of other fees, but the infrastructure is included in the fees as a way of

1) subsidizing intercollegiate athletics
2) creating athletic opportunities for others on campus

2 is a lot more defensible to me, though I think both are reasonable. If you are correct in your costs of auxiliary services, we’ve found the easy spot to cut that $200 million you claim is easy to get off the public trough.

Even the general activity fee is more than many seem to think–the student newspapers, legal services, child care and yes, that horrible night ride aka public safety is included. Speakers and artistic performances are included. Health is another important section of it which is critical giving the living and learning conditions of closed spaces students share.

And no, I don’t support public stadiums which was an especially awkward moment when I met with Bill Dewitt III to talk about including biking facilities at the new Cardinals stadium. We were both gracious about our differences and to his credit he was still quite interested in our ideas. Turns out the final deal is a better deal for taxpayers and the public end by the City of Saint Louis focuses on infrastructure around the stadium which I do support.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 11:08 am
Arch -

The cost of your ‘complete’ educational experience is going to be very sensitive to inflation. I.E. - if I subsidize public transportaion to further the ‘educational experience’, I am going to have to start paying pensions to bus drivers. This kind of stuff is going to put your whole educational system at the mercy of inflation.
Fine if you want it that way, but just realize what it is you are really up against. It is not trivial. –Anonymous#2

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 12:28 pm
>students reinforcing class >barriers to success already >reinforced by such institutions >as the Greek System.

OK, I’ll bite. How does the Greek system act as a barrier to success?

But I must say, my purchase of “COLLEGE ILLINOIS” contracts for my girls is looking like a better & better deal every day.

Comment by Pat Collins Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 12:56 pm
Did you look at the numbers? What costs most? And what is increasing the fastest?

You aren’t addressing anything substantively, but offering Blagorgeous like rants.

Transportation isn’t that much of the fees even and fees aren’t increasing very fast so empirically, your statement is false. Taking a small portion of the overall expenditures and focusing on it to make a point is dishonest when your statement hasn’t been demonstrated in the past.

Let me repeat, if you want to cut fees–look at intercollegiate athletics and the fees used towards them. Anyone serious would target them first

1) They are relatively expensive
2) They impact relatively few students and thus add the least to the overall experience.

And going back to the beginning, education is already at the mercy of inflation because there are few efficiency gains in an educational institution in terms of teaching and thus you are always going to having increasing costs faster than inflation if you want to keep class sizes similar.

And not surprisingly—the areas that cover that problem are going up faster than the fees. It’s called tuition and it’s the point of the original post–not that costs of fees are going up, but costs of tuition.

The response then was a claim that activities largely covered by fees are causing the increase in tuitition. It’s a nonsensical response.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 1:20 pm
The Greek System is relatively expensive and so many who are of limited means can’t get in–either the time requirements or the costs inhibit participation.

And the Greek system is a significant source of networking for after college success. Other types of more affordable extracurricular participation can help overcome that by providing lower cost alternatives.

The point isn’t that the Greek system is bad (I was Greek for a while in college–though to be fair we had a very different system than most state colleges). It’s to point out that it tends to reinforce class issues. I’m not one to suggest we tear down a Greek system, but that we ensure other alternatives are present.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 1:23 pm
ArchPundit,

You and I agree on the base purpose of education. I, also, think that one of the current problems is that education has become too professional-technical and should be more broad-based,learning how to think and reason. We should teach that, but we don’t need to fund the opportunities to practice it. We just do it in our day-to-day lives.

Here’s how fees affect tutition increases. Fees exist. About half of all fees are paid by state funding (through financial aid). State resources are limited. This reduces the state amount available to the central (teaching) mission and (in part) drives the institutional justification for tuition increases.

Definitely, competitive athletics is one of the many things that the universities do beyond their central mission.

Anonymous#2 is catching on that anything we can dream up is good for someone, but what do we lose because of it?

Why should educational costs always lead inflation?

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 1:50 pm
Maybe I’m not being clear, but if fees are stable (and they generally are right now), and tuition is increasing, then trying to blame the rise in tuition as due to extras isn’t accurate.

Now, if you want to use some of the fees to reduce the increase in tuition costs not from fees, where do you start?

The student newspaper? Intramurals? Intercollegiate? Transportation? Student Health Care? Child care for students? Speakers?

When you look across expenses in those categories, the biggest recurrent theme is athletics–of which intercollegiate athletics are a disproportionate share of the costs and they affect the fewest students directly. Those seem like the criteria to cut in this category.

Transportation on most state campuses is night time oriented and safety oriented (U of I is the exception) or parking related on many campuses. Health care is not just individual health care, but a public health function. Speakers and entertainment are often cultural and realistically not that much. A student paper is academic as well as an ‘activity’.

If you are saying you’d cut athletics, well, maybe I see your point, but I think the place to cut on many campuses is in support staff and personnel. That’s going to be a problem in Illinois. Privatizing janitorial services probably can save you some money and doing so probably reduces the inflationary increases in a way that doesn’t affect the student experience much. Most private universities are undergoing the same process already.

I’ll leave that suggestion out there for the intrepid Lege member to pick up and then be soundly threatened with hanging.

But I don’t think the universities are out there as far as has been claimed. If there is something out of whack, it’s something that state universities are responding to and that is an extremely competitive environment for top scholars from private universities. U of I and even the second tier universities including ISU, Eastern and Northern face the same problem. Southern is in the same category because it is building a very good young scholar base even though it traditionally has been weak.

Places like Western are a different story, but not entirely left out of the phenomenon.

But even then, it’s worse because there is more and more flexible private sector work out there for PhDs in many categories. English PhDs don’t have tons of options, but social scientists, historians and certainly the natural scientists have strong private sector job prospects which is different than it used to be.

Now, add to that as one of the first posts said

1) inflation
2) Health care costs increasing (employee costs–students are going to be more of an issue soon too)
3) utility costs

Like health care, it’s a labor intensive sector with little to increase efficiency as an average increase to inflation assumes. Obviously it can’t keep spiralling, but at the same time there isn’t an easy solution.

And I don’t disagree that there should be strong oversight, but I think the focus should be on support personnel more than anything and the pols don’t want to touch that. That’s the area where if you take the mission as the starting point–educating students–one can make the changes with affecting the students the least. Then move down to affecting students (which includes direct instruction costs).

Ultimately, say you reduce fees to zero–an impossibility, but you do it–what happens? Well, in about two years right now, that savings is eaten up by tuition increases. The fees don’t solve the underlying problems–of which right now, there isn’t a solution.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 5:00 pm
To keep the debate flowing, some examples of how budget cuts and stagant budget have anecdotally affected U of I in Champaign in the past couple years…

A news analysis of where the University stands ***with this from the guv:
“They’ve made it clear that they believe they can do more with less,” he said. “They can remove administrative wastes and not impact the quality of education with students or impair the University to go out and recruit faculty of the highest level so that the reputation of this school continues to grow.”

OK, if you say so…

Student jobs cut as budget deficit hits UI Professors teach for free to help University Courses drop, sizes increase due to cuts Discovery Program cut back UI admits more freshmen Building maintenance put on hold Library feels brunt of cuts Cuts costing University Extension staff, visibiltiy

Extra tuition money funds classroom repair State receives low grade in affordability BOT raises fees Tuition overtakes funding: State support falls behind cost of UI tuition for first time ever

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 7:10 pm
Um that above looks weird, maybe this will help…

Student jobs cut as budget deficit hits UI *** Professors teach for free to help University *** Courses drop, sizes increase due to cuts *** Discovery Program cut back *** UI admits more freshmen *** Building maintenance put on hold *** Library feels brunt of cuts *** Cuts costing University Extension staff, visibiltiy ***

Extra tuition money funds classroom repair *** State receives low grade in affordability *** BOT raises fees *** Tuition overtakes funding: State support falls behind cost of UI tuition for first time ever

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 25, 05 @ 7:15 pm
Accountability in higher ed is a much, much bigger deal than our parochial wrangling. See http://www.sheeo.org/account/comm/Overview.pdf for a pretty impressive look at the issue, the final report is forthcoming in a few weeks (project run by a well-respected former IL higher ed exec).

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 28, 05 @ 10:49 pm
Accountability in higher ed is a much, much bigger deal than our parochial wrangling. See http://www.sheeo.org/account/comm/Overview.pdf for a pretty impressive look at the issue, the final report is forthcoming in a few weeks (project run by a well-respected former IL higher ed exec).

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 28, 05 @ 10:50 pm