Heard some rumors that all the directional schools in Illinois W Ill, E Ill, N Ill, S Ill, and NE Ill, may have severe cutbacks coming. W Ill is even considering dropping out of DI and dropping many academic programs. All five of those schools have been losing enrollment for several years, making things worse, as the Illinois deficit situation appears to be heading for a crisis, as the state pension situation is awful and will get worse.

Sounds like Illinois St and Illinois are fine, but the rest of the system are going to go through a wretching time.

(12-09-2015 12:07 AM)NoDak Wrote:  Heard some rumors that all the directional schools in Illinois W Ill, E Ill, N Ill, S Ill, and NE Ill, may have severe cutbacks coming. W Ill is even considering dropping out of DI and dropping many academic programs. All five of those schools have been losing enrollment for several years, making things worse, as the Illinois deficit situation appears to be heading for a crisis, as the state pension situation is awful and will get worse.

Sounds like Illinois St and Illinois are fine, but the rest of the system are going to go through a wretching time.

If schools get the axe or lose programs, it will be in the following order...

W/E Ill
Ill St
SIU
NIU
Northwestern
UofI

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(12-09-2015 12:37 AM)Stay Cool Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 12:07 AM)NoDak Wrote:  Heard some rumors that all the directional schools in Illinois W Ill, E Ill, N Ill, S Ill, and NE Ill, may have severe cutbacks coming. W Ill is even considering dropping out of DI and dropping many academic programs. All five of those schools have been losing enrollment for several years, making things worse, as the Illinois deficit situation appears to be heading for a crisis, as the state pension situation is awful and will get worse.

Sounds like Illinois St and Illinois are fine, but the rest of the system are going to go through a wretching time.

If schools get the axe or lose programs, it will be in the following order...

W/E Ill
Ill St
SIU
NIU
Northwestern
UofI

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

Northwestern is a private school; they have nothing to do with the state system.

He said axe OR lose programs.

I am for consolidating WIU into NIU system and EIU into SIU system to save cash.

I don't think Northern Illinois is going anywhere. I think they might want to move money around from one school to the other. Western Illinois money could go to Northern to boast the school up more. That is why they want another Illinois public in a P5 conference to help get the enrollment up, and keep kids from leaving the state.

I feel for Western snd Eastern ILL but always thought they were a little small for Division 1. They seem a better fit for Div II.

Where I grew up in SE Iowa, there were 3 universities that were close in distance. Western ILL, Northeast Missouri State, and University of Iowa.

Northeast Missouri State is now called Truman State, even though Harry Truman's home was in NW Missouri. Truman State is now Div II.

Missouri has an interesting university system. At one time, they had the 4 regional schools, plus Missouri-Columbia Missouri-Rolla, Missouri-KC and Missouri-STL Since then Southwest Missouri State has grown and renamed itself simply Missouri State.

I think ILL will go through a similar transition as Missouri went through with its regional schools. Some will grow and stay in Div I and some will be scaled back and land in Div II.

(12-09-2015 05:52 AM)goofus Wrote:  I feel for Western snd Eastern ILL but always thought they were a little small for Division 1. They seem a better fit for Div II.

Where I grew up in SE Iowa, there were 3 universities that were close in distance. Western ILL, Northeast Missouri State, and University of Iowa.

Northeast Missouri State is now called Truman State, even though Harry Truman's home was in NW Missouri. Truman State is now Div II.

Missouri has an interesting university system. At one time, they had the 4 regional schools, plus Missouri-Columbia Missouri-Rolla, Missouri-KC and Missouri-STL Since then Southeast Missouri State has grown and renamed itself simply Missouri State.

I think ILL will go through a similar transition as Missouri went through with its regional schools. Some will grow and stay in Div I and some will be scaled back and land in Div II.

Idiot hedge fund managers are terrible for Illinois

If Louisiana can have 78 DI FCS regional schools in that state, I see no reason why IL can't have four.

IL is always financially stressed and having to do this and that to make ends meet. How many billions are they still short for the state finances?

It costs $2.90 at the toll both just to get into that crap state.

(12-09-2015 09:36 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  If Louisiana can have 78 DI FCS regional schools in that state, I see no reason why IL can't have four.

Louisiana higher education is fundamentally broken. I wouldn't aspire to be anything like it.

(12-09-2015 02:55 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't think Northern Illinois is going anywhere. I think they might want to move money around from one school to the other. Western Illinois money could go to Northern to boast the school up more. That is why they want another Illinois public in a P5 conference to help get the enrollment up, and keep kids from leaving the state.

Decisions about the viability of these branch campuses- eastern, western, or northern- will not be made with football in mind.

Is there actually an article (Chi Times?) that mentions some of these schools dropping DI athletics as an option?

Or is this just rumors?

(12-09-2015 10:05 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Is there actually an article (Chi Times?) that mentions some of these schools dropping DI athletics as an option?

Or is this just rumors?

There was an article in Crain's Chicago Business that talked about how the directional schools are losing enrollment on top of bad system finances. W ill's fb coach, who was MVFC of the year, wants to jump ship to South Dakota. A good source on our board says W Ill could either go Pioneer League football or drop to DII.

The directional schools within the state of Illinois, including Illinois State as the "central" school, are designed to meet the regional educational needs of the various corners of the State. Illinois is one of the few states that has higher education facilities in the true compass points, for whatever that is worth, and WIU and EIU serve as valuable resources for what are generally educationally and job poor areas. They will not be shuttered, nor merged, nor allowed to fail by the state of Illinois.

Having been to every Illinois state school numerous times, I have a good feel for each campus. In fact, I was at EIU this Thanksgiving. If the dollars make sense, (and I doubt they would) WIU and EIU each could move to Division 2 and keep their current status as regional Illinois institutions. SIU, NIU and ISU are larger, more nationally renowned (but still Midwestern regional) universities to which Division 1 athletics makes more sense.

There are simply too many marginal public universities in Illinois. The state would be better off creating one large campus with 50,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students and give HS students the option of attending community colleges for the first two years prior to transferring to the larger campus.

(12-09-2015 12:07 AM)NoDak Wrote:  Heard some rumors that all the directional schools in Illinois W Ill, E Ill, N Ill, S Ill, and NE Ill, may have severe cutbacks coming. W Ill is even considering dropping out of DI and dropping many academic programs. All five of those schools have been losing enrollment for several years, making things worse, as the Illinois deficit situation appears to be heading for a crisis, as the state pension situation is awful and will get worse.

Sounds like Illinois St and Illinois are fine, but the rest of the system are going to go through a wretching time.

I'm observing this situation very closely.

There's no doubt that the state funding for all Illinois public universities is basically non-existent at this point. The University of Illinois and Illinois State both have large foundations to get them through this period in a way that the "directional" schools are having a harder time with. At the same time, U of I has significant revenue from research along with a high number of international and out-of-state students that are effectively paying private school tuition prices. Those systems have already been weening themselves off of depending upon state funding for many years already.

That being said, absolutely no one should get alarmist about the directional schools dropping down athletic divisions (just as people shouldn't have been alarmist about when Hawaii's AD threw out a hypothetical that the school could have to consider dropping football a few months ago). It's a nuclear option threat that's simply meant to draw more attention to the issue. The state of Illinois is already pretty lean on the number of Division I programs considering the size of its population (and it definitely has the bare minimum of 3 FBS programs for its size).

It's so interesting to see the general support (fervor?) on this board for schools to drop sports or drop down levels. In reality, schools (for better or worse) have an EXTREMELY hard time doing it (unless you've got a serious political ramrodding like you had with UAB). No one wants to be the university president to pull the trigger on a move that downgrades the "front porch" part of the college since he/she will be the one that sent the university backwards. There are a whole lot more universities that are clamoring to move up divisions than the other way around. The directional schools in Illinois aren't gong to drop down athletic divisions unless the schools themselves actually have to shut down.

(12-09-2015 10:46 AM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  There are simply too many marginal public universities in Illinois. The state would be better off creating one large campus with 50,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students and give HS students the option of attending community colleges for the first two years prior to transferring to the larger campus.

I actually agree with you here. The flagship University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a top 10 public university (with a top 5 engineering program and top 10 business program overall, whether public or private), so it has become extremely difficult to get into. Yet, there's a STEEP drop-off in academic quality when you get past UIUC. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has very good graduate programs and an excellent medical school, but its undergraduate reputation hasn't risen to that same level.

There's simply a huge number of students that (a) can't get into UIUC because it's so competitive but (b) have grades and test scores that are waaaay too good for ISU and the directional schools. That's why the other Big Ten schools in neighboring states, particularly Iowa, Indiana and Purdue, are inundated with out-of-state Illinois students. To use a nearby comparison, Michigan State is still an excellent educational option for in-state students that aren't able to get into the University of Michigan. That equivalent of Michigan State doesn't exist in the state of Illinois, so it pushes a lot of those students to out-of-state flagships.

I don't know if there is a great answer. If I were running things, I believe that UIC is best positioned to be the "Michigan State equivalent" because it has the strong graduate programs (meaning that they have a strong academic faculty) in place and is located in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago that has turned into a very desirable place to live . (That wasn't the case 20 years ago.) The one mark against UIC is that it is much more of a commuter campus (albeit they have built a lot more residential dorms over the past few years), which isn't always attractive to the types of kids that are looking at Big Ten schools.

(12-09-2015 12:37 AM)Stay Cool Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 12:07 AM)NoDak Wrote:  Heard some rumors that all the directional schools in Illinois W Ill, E Ill, N Ill, S Ill, and NE Ill, may have severe cutbacks coming. W Ill is even considering dropping out of DI and dropping many academic programs. All five of those schools have been losing enrollment for several years, making things worse, as the Illinois deficit situation appears to be heading for a crisis, as the state pension situation is awful and will get worse.

Sounds like Illinois St and Illinois are fine, but the rest of the system are going to go through a wretching time.

If schools get the axe or lose programs, it will be in the following order...

W/E Ill
Ill St
SIU
NIU
Northwestern
UofI

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

Northwestern is private. What do they care?

(12-09-2015 05:52 AM)goofus Wrote:  I feel for Western snd Eastern ILL but always thought they were a little small for Division 1. They seem a better fit for Div II.

Where I grew up in SE Iowa, there were 3 universities that were close in distance. Western ILL, Northeast Missouri State, and University of Iowa.

Northeast Missouri State is now called Truman State, even though Harry Truman's home was in NW Missouri. Truman State is now Div II.

Missouri has an interesting university system. At one time, they had the 4 regional schools, plus Missouri-Columbia Missouri-Rolla, Missouri-KC and Missouri-STL Since then Southeast Missouri State has grown and renamed itself simply Missouri State.

I think ILL will go through a similar transition as Missouri went through with its regional schools. Some will grow and stay in Div I and some will be scaled back and land in Div II.

You mean Southwest Missouri State instead of Southeast Missouri State. Southwest was dropped to become Missouri State.

(12-09-2015 12:51 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-09-2015 05:52 AM)goofus Wrote:  I feel for Western snd Eastern ILL but always thought they were a little small for Division 1. They seem a better fit for Div II.

Where I grew up in SE Iowa, there were 3 universities that were close in distance. Western ILL, Northeast Missouri State, and University of Iowa.

Northeast Missouri State is now called Truman State, even though Harry Truman's home was in NW Missouri. Truman State is now Div II.

Missouri has an interesting university system. At one time, they had the 4 regional schools, plus Missouri-Columbia Missouri-Rolla, Missouri-KC and Missouri-STL Since then Southeast Missouri State has grown and renamed itself simply Missouri State.

I think ILL will go through a similar transition as Missouri went through with its regional schools. Some will grow and stay in Div I and some will be scaled back and land in Div II.

You mean Southwest Missouri State instead of Southeast Missouri State. Southwest was dropped to become Missouri State.

yup. I will fix it. thanks.