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* Wikipedia…
SIU’s [Carbondale] enrollment reached a record of 24,869 students in 1991, a time when SIU became notorious for its party school reputation.
The endless bickering with the town over the school’s partying ways, changing student tastes and the state’s fiscal problems eventually tanked enrollment. By the time Bruce Rauner took over, enrollment stood at 17,989. Then the former governor’s plot to “leverage” the passage of anti-union laws created a massive stalemate and no budget for two years, leading lots of parents and students to conclude the school could actually close. As with everything else, Rauner took a crisis and turned it into a disaster. Enrollment plummeted to 12,817 and it kept right on falling through the pandemic. It’s like that old saying about bankruptcy: It happens gradually, then suddenly.
* Press release…
For the first time since 2014, enrollment at Southern Illinois University Carbondale has grown. Overall enrollment for fall 2023 is 11,359 — 252 students, or 2.3%, more than last year — the highest overall boost in the number of students in 21 years and highest percentage increase in over 30 years.
Enrollment is basically back up to where it was in 2020.
* Back to the press release…
The university is well positioned for more growth, Lane said, and it is on track to reach its goal of 15,000 students by 2030, set in Imagine 2030.
15,000 students would be about a thousand fewer students than were enrolled in the 2016-17 school year.
One thing is for sure: You’re not gonna make SIUC any better by cutting its budget. Building it back up will take time, lots of effort and money.
* And now John Tillman, one of the chief cheerleaders of the Rauner playbook and the chief point person against the Workers’ Rights Amendment last year, is arguing in the Wall St. Journal that Virginia’s governor has to succeed where Rauner failed and strip public employee unions of their rights if he ever wants to be president…
It’s bizarre that a piece warning of how Virginia is in danger of becoming like Illinois only mentions Illinois in passing, as a bogeyman for anywhere that allows government employees to collectively bargain. https://t.co/AYfOXY5yAV
— Dan Vock (@danvock) September 2, 2023
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 9:53 am
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As a left leaning Illinois resident, I take it as a point of pride that the ghouls on the right are now using Illinois as a scare word. It used to just be places like California and Massachusetts and New York City. We’re entering rarified air.
If the worst people you know are constantly unhappy with you, you’re doing something right.
Comment by Homebody Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:04 am
I really don’t think many citizens realize what Raunder did to higher ed. I visited WIU one day in April, the first time I had been back on campus in about 10 years, and was in total shock. It felt like I was there during spring break but no, it was a regular day of classes with just so few students on campus anymore.
Comment by Grimlock Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:17 am
As a former Saluki, happy to hear any positive news about SIUC. Compared to where things were just a few years ago, Carbondale is almost booming at this point.
Comment by Treefiddy Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:19 am
Eastern and Western have also had pretty significant enrollment reductions. Good for SIU that they are seeing a slight uptick. But maybe all the directional schools need to re-think what they are offering prospective students for the price.
Comment by Friendly Bob Adams Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:21 am
First, Dan Vock is top shelf, and not just on a social media platform.
Rauner decimated higher education. Eastern was running on lint change found in the cushions, as an example, with grass not able to be cut… I have receipts.
Reimagining Illinois higher education now, that’s a legacy thing for any governor willing to be transcending in that area. Legacy.
It will take a decade or so to change the tide that Rauner used as a tidal wave to sink higher ed here for all time.
This is great to see and a constant reminder how Rauner was purposeful. Not an accident. The evil put on Illinois institutions by BOTH Rauners, their legacy together must be overcome, then add after an ounce of prevention so it won’t happen again.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:36 am
As far as union killing legislation goes, there are a lot of very wealthy people who are all too willing to pay people to say this would be a good idea. But until they find a way to pay most voters to agree, it ain’t happening, W$J opinion pieces notwithstanding.
Comment by Socially DIstant watcher Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 10:59 am
=Reimagining Illinois higher education now, that’s a legacy thing for any governor willing to be transcending in that area. Legacy.=
I’m all for it. But the changes needed could very easily lead (in the short term) not being reelected again.
The NY Times just had a great article on college enrollment and perceived value. A fact from the article shows in 2010 college enrollment was 18 million, in 2021 it’s 15.5 million.
The fact that SIU-C is adding students in the face of an overall decrease in student enrollment is a good thing.
Something to try and fix - once you get a kid in a state school, get them to stay and graduate. Illinois could start leading by working hard to increase graduation rates.
Comment by Cool Papa Bell Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:01 am
Yea blame Bruce Rauner, never mention the pandemic forcing kids to go remote for multiple years, thus killing the whole college experience. Always a republicans fault no matter what. Why would I pay thousands more in tuition to stare at a screen when I could do the same at a local community college during those years for a fraction of the price ?
Comment by 28th Ward Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:10 am
===Yea blame Bruce Rauner===
Ya shoulda stopped here. The rest of that diatribe is what all universities faced during the pandemic but let’s be clear where you shoulda stopped and why… because Raunerism is/was predicated on destroying what actual people cared about, including things like higher ed or The Ounce of Prevention funding too… where Pritzker, the foundations, his family had to bail out for Diana as Diana Rauner helped with branding for her husband.
If you worry about bashing “Republicans” you’re likely not a realist to what it was during that entire General Assembly without a budget and the sparse monies towards higher ed, all purposeful… and Republicans ran on those “successes” in Rauner’s midterm.
I have the receipts.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:18 am
===But maybe all the directional schools need to re-think what they are offering prospective students for the price.
Their tuition is really pretty reasonable for Illinois. The challenge is that as we have encouraged 4 year college, we have encouraged students towards colleges that are better known so regional state universities are less desired unless they are also a commuter campus (SUIE for example). The value from EIU, SIU, or SIUC is not much different from ISU at the undergrad level especially, but we have turned it into a reputation issue. This is true in most states with regional universities. I don’t have any easy answer, but cutting their budgets is counter productive. Eastern has done some strong rebranding–not sure how that is going as they started it before Covid.
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:19 am
28th Ward, try reading:
- Enrollment plummeted to 12,817 and it kept right on falling through the pandemic. -
Enrollment was sinking fast before the pandemic. It’s only now under new leadership is it starting to head the other direction.
Comment by Excitable Boy Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:20 am
“is arguing in the Wall St. Journal that Virginia’s governor has to succeed where Rauner failed and strip public employee unions of their rights if he ever wants to be president”
Utter delusion in thinking that stripping public employee union rights is a plus in a presidential campaign, outside of a primary. Just like the delusion of the opt out campaign succeeding at killing off public employee unions (see BLS unionization stats, very little change since Janus).
Illinois has improved a lot under Pritzker. Using it as a scare word is so 2017.
Comment by Grandson of Man Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:24 am
===get them to stay and graduate. Illinois could start leading by working hard to increase graduation rates.
For full time students the grad rate (150% of time) are quite high. The challenge with graduation rates are part time students who are largely part time because they already face challenges that made them choose part time (being a parent, working full time, etc).
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:25 am
Yea blame Bruce Rauner
Yea, I do. But Rauner wasn’t governor when the pandemic hit, so you’re comparing apples to peanuts. Actually having budgets that fund higher education and MAP grants redounds to the benefit of the SIUs and EIUs. Rauner was a disaster–in so many ways.
Comment by Steve Rogers Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:29 am
===never mention the pandemic ===
Are you illiterate?
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:30 am
Keep in mind by the mid-2030s Illinois is expected to see a drop in 22% of high school students graduating. About 5% has happened already so another 17%. It’s probably worse in many of the traditional catchment areas for the regionals. We do need to discuss the right size of the regionals, but they still serve a lot of students.
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:32 am
I’m an SIUC alum and proud. Happy to see this. I’ve met Chancellor Lane and he seems to be moving this campus in the right direction. I saw a billboard in downtown St. Louis that SIUC is offering in-state tuition to Missourians. Smart move. Other states have been poaching our kids for a decade now, it’s time to reverse that, so kudos to Chancellor Lane for his great recruiting work.
Comment by Steve Rogers Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:33 am
Illinois “Freedom Caucus” is arguing that the teachers union is bad and has a proposal to curb the union and limit it’s donations. They have also proposed that any Republican office holder that takes money from any teacher union be kicked out of the Republican party. Wonder if the same rule can also be created for Profit and Uhlein money.
Comment by DTownResident Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:37 am
==For the first time since 2014==
Hmm. Who was governor in 2015…and went without a budget for almost 800 days?
Comment by Jocko Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:39 am
Anyone attending SIU-C should look up the BEER (Balancing Education, Experience and Reality) Scholarship.
In a nod to reality, the 1980’s party school image, and the wonderful time they had, a group of SIU-C endowed a scholarship called BEER. They seemed to have raised enough money to endow at least seven $2,000 scholarships.
https://siuday.siu.edu/giving-day/47165/department/47188
The back story -
https://dailyegyptian.com/92321/news/alumni-give-back-to-siu-students-with-beer-scholarship/
Comment by Huh? Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:56 am
For Western, based on when the funding decreases were happening and when our enrollment was dropping, it pretty clear enrollment dropped as a result of less funding. Less funding means higher tuition, fewer improvements, and less money for maintenance and staff.
Funding started heading downhill in 2002; enrollment started heading downhill in 2006.
Funding dropped off a cliff during the state budget crisis starting in 2015 and going through 2017; enrollment dropped off a cliff from 2016 to around 2019.
Funding was solidified after the crisis, was increased in FY 2022, and is proposed to increase in the FY 2024 budget (fiscal year starts July 1); enrollment was static in Fall 2021 (FY 2022) and increased 2.5% in Fall 2022 (FY 2023).
WIU has pretty much held steady for enrollment since 2019, so COVID didn’t actually have that much of an impact. It was years of funding decreases (both parties were complicit) followed up by the absolute disaster that was our previous governor.
Comment by DoingHumanThings Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 11:58 am
If the enrollments at these universities stay low, combing needs to be seriously considered.
Comment by Lurker Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 12:43 pm
I remember that during the Rauner years whoever was appointed head of SIU would also not approve mailings to high school students at least for the Carbondale campus. When recruiting activities are curved when they shouldn’t have been that affects enrollment. Our community college was allocated zero dollars during those years. Such a disaster for higher Ed in this state.
Comment by DTownResident Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 1:14 pm
=The challenge with graduation rates are part time students who are largely part time because they already face challenges that made them choose part time (being a parent, working full time, etc).=
Interesting thought on part time students and the pull of life after a few years and walking away from school.
Looking at SIU’s numbers…
https://irs.siu.edu/interactive-factbook/students/graduation-and-retention.php
The fall of 2015 class held (after 4 years) a 16% retention rate and 32% graduation rate.
So just 16% of the incoming freshman class in 2015 lasted four years and only 32% of them graduated?
Again help solve the problem of kids leaving school after you get them there and get them a degree and then you don’t have to replace as many students every single year.
Comment by Cool Papa Bell Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 1:32 pm
Maybe Illinois universities would do better if they offered the same financial packages that out of state colleges are offering to kids from Illinois.
Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:05 pm
===Yea blame Bruce Rauner, never mention the pandemic forcing kids to go remote for multiple years, thus killing the whole college experience. ===
Is it okay if I blame Republican Boomers in general for making childrearing in the US so unaffordable that Millennials put it off or avoided it altogether, leading to a nationwide drop in college enrollment that’s going to force a bunch of small schools out of existence?
Comment by Suburban Mom Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:10 pm
Two thoughts:
First, @ Doing Human Things is spot on in describe the “man-made” (an woman-made) crisis in Macomb.
Rauner’s decision to withhold $100,000,000 across two years in state appropriations for Western Illinois was catastrophic. In addition, the fact that local State Rep. Hammond voted so as to not override his veto of the budget, thereby causing immeasurable and irreparable harm to her own district, was politics at its worse.
When the state appropriations stopped, all heck broke lose as described by @ Doing Human Things. Not mentioned were other human costs of budget politicking. Laying off hundreds of local resident-workers at WIU along withand many dozens of faculty lines meant the local economy collapsed as well.
Second, I would suggest the SIU-C enrollment growth be taken as a grain of salt at this point. 250 extra students represent between 2 and 10 extra claases. Not a whole lot of growth in the broad sense. At best, I would suggest Carbondale, like Macomb, has stopped the bleeding, and has over the past couple years stable enrollment.
Comment by H-W Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:21 pm
So I looked at some data that was incorrect–with the data you pointed to you still see fairly significant changes improving exactly what you are recommending–retaining students. Almost 10% for four years and 5% for 6 years which pulled them ahead of EIU & WIU.
I’m not disagreeing with you and in fact I probably talked right past you without realizing it. If I were doing a strategic enrollment plan at any of the three, I would have a focus on squeezing out students from local area high schools and then transfer students from CCs, but then focusing on meeting student needs for those who are at risk. Of those leaving through transfer a large chunk of them are going to CCs which as a group probably means performance or fit issues (some students don’t do well away from home, etc). Those should be their focus as they go into even more lean times that are ahead.
That said, all three have trends suggesting a downward trend during Rauner with some recovery which will run into Covid and I don’t think we know how that will shake out–there’s a retention dip in 2021 similar to what seems to have happened around 2015-2018.
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:26 pm
@ Lurker
Your suggestion regarding the current low enrollments (combining schools?) is short-sighted. Taking the present enrollment pattern as normative ignores the past reality, when Illinois invested heavily in making education affordable for all its children and young adults. When we did so, we had greater enrollment numbers across the board, and no one complained about too many students.
Reducing and/or eliminating regional opportunities for higher education does not solve the needs of the regions, nor of the state or the people, or local labor market needs. Investing does - hence the community college system established in the 1960s. Expansion of higher education opportunities led to greater worker productivity, higher economic grown, enhanced wages as well as profits, etc.
“Combining” as a solution to a temporary shortage of students sounds like reducing spending with the goal of not growing. We have already seen what happens when we spend less on higher education. We call it the Rauner years in Illinois higher education. We call it years of stagnant state appropriations for the decades preceding and following Rauner.
If Illinois were to assume anew, responsibility for educating its children and citizens, imagine the enhanced worker productivity and economic growth that might follow. Indeed, you do not have to imagine. You only have to look back to the time when we did so. It is no secret among today’s elders that when we went to public universities in the 1960s and 1970s, we paid 25% of the cost, and the state paid 75% of the cost of our educational opportunities. Today, those numbers are reversed, and we seem to have created a system that discriminates very effective upon the ability to pay.
Clearly, things in regional higher education were better run prior to the stagnation of state funding levels, followed by Rauner’s intentional starvation of public higher education. Adjusting to the currently reality only assures the present circumstances.
We can do better.
Comment by H-W Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:49 pm
===(combining schools?)===
Frankly I had no idea if the intention was to combining schools (close schools) or combining …. I don’t exactly know.
The bottom line to that is we can’t even close dilapidated prisons, closing whole universities at this rate isn’t as possible either.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 2:53 pm
In terms of combining universities, you could probably get some mild savings from things like shared services like HR/Institutional Research/etc but it’s not nearly what anyone ever expects. It would also create a fairly confusing set of issues with labor contracts as well given the different campuses have different contracts. I believe all the campuses offer up state benefits already.
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 3:07 pm
Blago caused a big increase in tuition when he transferred the universities medical insurance cost from the state budget back to the universities. It made it look like he saved the state money.
Quinn should have reversed that, but it didn’t get done. He was busy trying to cut pensions.
Then Rauner tried to destroy the universities along with the rest of the state government with his stunt of no-budget budgets. Other states increased their universities budgets while ours were almost destroyed. They are still trying to recover. The first thing I would suggest is put the universities employee medical insurance back in the state budget the way it always was before Blago changed it, and have the universities lower their tuition. Make our tuition more competitive with our neighboring states.
Comment by DuPage Wednesday, Sep 6, 23 @ 8:05 pm