The article below notes that Chicago State only enrolled 86 total freshman this fall. I know they are already a geographic outlier in the rump Franken-WAC that still exists as a basketball conference, but if this trend continues Chicago State may no longer exist as a school, let alone a member of a D-I athletic conference.

Article on serious enrollment problems

As a Chicagoan, Chicago State is an embarrassment to the city and all respected and reputable universities. It's graduation rate is only 11%, and almost all of the money needed to fund the school is being paid by Illinois tax payers. The school's graduation rate is always between 13% and 21%. It also had nearly $400 million in debt. Why it even bothers with an athletic program is beyond me.

Beyond not having enough students, faculty and money to stay open, having both the president (unjustified spending) and interim president (plagiarism on dissertation), and not having the other basic fundamentals of a university, the school is sham created by political figures for more money into their pockets.

That's Chicago politics for you.

Frankly, a university with a financial situation as bad as Chicago St has no business fielding an the athletic department at any level. It is a wonder that they haven't closed their doors yet.

If Chicago St is gone the WAC would only have 7 members in hoops right?
Cheers!

Merge them with NE IL. Cut athletics.

(09-28-2016 05:33 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Merge them with NE IL. Cut athletics.

NEIU started as a branch campus of Chicago State. Now has own Board of Regents.

The state should cut its losses and allow students to transfer to UIC. It's only 12 miles away and is big enough to absorb them. From the article, it sounds like Chicago State has a decent pharmacy program so maybe that program should also move to UIC.

This would allow funding to be diverted to UIC & help make it the true "second option" that state politicians have been looking for. Other than Illinois State it's the only school big and diverse enough to be able to realistically achieve that status with only a moderate increase in spending.

While we are on the topic, EIU and SIU both have a big loss of freshman this year.

They should probably combine with SIU absorbing EIU as another major campus like they have with Edwardsville. That would save some money and duplication of programs.

Eastern Illinois is dumb directional because it doesn't have a true geographic identity like Southern Illinois does.

(09-28-2016 04:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Frankly, a university with a financial situation as bad as Chicago St has no business fielding an the athletic department at any level. It is a wonder that they haven't closed their doors yet.

That's the first thing that came to mind in reading that article. They need to shut down the athletic department immediately or transition to a D3 school.

Cal Baptist will be in its 8th year of D-II in 2017, so they could make the move to the WAC in 2018. They are the most likely to move up in the WAC footprint w/o football.

(09-28-2016 06:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The state should cut its losses and allow students to transfer to UIC. It's only 12 miles away and is big enough to absorb them. From the article, it sounds like Chicago State has a decent pharmacy program so maybe that program should also move to UIC.

This would allow funding to be diverted to UIC & help make it the true "second option" that state politicians have been looking for. Other than Illinois State it's the only school big and diverse enough to be able to realistically achieve that status with only a moderate increase in spending.

This is a bit harsh, but UIC isn't going to want anything to do with Chicago State transfers. UIC is a *significantly* larger step up academically from Chicago State on the undergrad side and in a completely different universe on the graduate program side (where UIC is considered to be a legitimately upper tier school when it comes to its grad programs, particular in STEM fields). If anything, adding Chicago State transfers would detract UIC from becoming the "second option" to the University of Illinois flagship. The State of Illinois isn't losing the types of students that go to Chicago State to other states. As someone pointed out, Chicago State has an abysmal graduation rate of 11%. Instead, the students that are leaving the state because of the lack of second option are disproportionately the ones that can't get into the U of I flagship but their grades and test scores are way above the current standards for UIC and Illinois State (and Chicago State isn't even anywhere close to being on the radar for them - you'd have an easier time recruiting those students to go to school in Alaska). Those are the kids that are enrolling as out-of-state students at Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Mizzou and other nearby flagship/flagship-equivalents en masse.

The closer and somewhat reasonable academic peer to Chicago State is Northeastern Illinois University, but it's on the complete opposite side of town on the far North Side (whereas Chicago State is on the far South Side). Remember that the student population at Chicago State consists almost entirely non-traditional older commuter students that live on the South Side, are working full-time while taking classes and are generally completely reliant upon public transportation to go anywhere. Realistically, the students that are going to Chicago State now simply aren't going to be commuting up to Northeastern Illinois as those CTA bus trips would take (without exaggeration) a couple of hours or more with multiple connections and it would take an hour even if you have a car. (People need to remember that Chicago is a HUGE city both population-wise and in physical size - the distance from CSU to NEIU is 25 miles even though they're within the same city limits and that entire route consists of densely packed urban population and development.)

Now, maybe the solution is to merge Chicago State into NEIU and then make the existing Chicago State campus into the South Side branch campus of NEIU. That might address some of the financial burden since NEIU's enrollment has actually held up relatively well (and they have stronger cash flow from people that live on the North Side seeking grad programs, such as teachers looking for master's degrees to move up on their pay scales).

It's sad because this is all about the ineptitude at the state level regarding college funding. Chicago State is the canary in the coal mine - you're going to see this play out in many other states across the country sooner rather than later. What makes it worse from a societal perspective is that the public schools with the wealthier alumni bases (such as the flagships) can weather the storm, whereas the schools that serve the non-traditional students and less affluent populations where commuting to the local school is literally they ONLY way that they could ever afford to go to college are the ones that will get completely squeezed.

(09-28-2016 06:25 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  While we are on the topic, EIU and SIU both have a big loss of freshman this year.

They should probably combine with SIU absorbing EIU as another major campus like they have with Edwardsville. That would save some money and duplication of programs.

Eastern Illinois is dumb directional because it doesn't have a true geographic identity like Southern Illinois does.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...story.html


School

2016 total

Total change

2016 freshmen

Freshmen change


Eastern Illinois U. 7,415 -13% 1,251 -25.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Carbondale 15,987 -7.6% 2,126 -23.7%
Western Illinois U. 10,373 -6.5% 1,527 -0.5%
Northern Illinois U. 19,015 -5.5% 1,802 -20.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Edwardsville 14,142 -0.9% 1,935 -7.7%
U. of Illinois at Chicago* 28,710 +0.3% 3,307 -5.1%
U. of Illinois at Springfield* 3,483 +1% 300 +11.9%
Illinois State U. 21,039 +1.1% 3,638 +1.5%
U. of Illinois at Urbana* 44,880 +1.8% 7,592 +0.4%

Note: University of Illinois schools show on-campus enrollment only. Western Illinois figures are for both campuses.



EIU, like the other directionals, were Teachers Colleges, and it does serve the Eastern part of the state, just like WIU, SIU and NIU do.

It had/has a different purpose than UIUC

The schools are far enough apart, and still have good overall enrollment that combining makes no sense.

(09-28-2016 06:46 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 06:25 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  While we are on the topic, EIU and SIU both have a big loss of freshman this year.

They should probably combine with SIU absorbing EIU as another major campus like they have with Edwardsville. That would save some money and duplication of programs.

Eastern Illinois is dumb directional because it doesn't have a true geographic identity like Southern Illinois does.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...story.html


School

2016 total

Total change

2016 freshmen

Freshmen change


Eastern Illinois U. 7,415 -13% 1,251 -25.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Carbondale 15,987 -7.6% 2,126 -23.7%
Western Illinois U. 10,373 -6.5% 1,527 -0.5%
Northern Illinois U. 19,015 -5.5% 1,802 -20.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Edwardsville 14,142 -0.9% 1,935 -7.7%
U. of Illinois at Chicago* 28,710 +0.3% 3,307 -5.1%
U. of Illinois at Springfield* 3,483 +1% 300 +11.9%
Illinois State U. 21,039 +1.1% 3,638 +1.5%
U. of Illinois at Urbana* 44,880 +1.8% 7,592 +0.4%

Note: University of Illinois schools show on-campus enrollment only. Western Illinois figures are for both campuses.



EIU, like the other directionals, were Teachers Colleges, and it does serve the Eastern part of the state, just like WIU, SIU and NIU do.

It had/has a different purpose than UIUC

The schools are far enough apart, and still have good overall enrollment that combining makes no sense.

Agreed. I don't think the directional school campuses themselves should be combined - they definitely have a different purpose than UIUC and the geographic and population size of Illinois makes it quite reasonable and logical to have a Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western school in each region.

Now, combining *administrations* could be a way to save costs. Instead of each school having its own separate governing body, maybe Illinois should have something similar to the California model where there's the upper tier UC system and then the next tier Cal State system. It's not so much about combining physical campuses (because I do think having separate campuses for geographic reasons serve an important purpose), but rather streamlining administrative costs.

With enrollment down so much for some of the schools, some cheaper out of state public state schools must be picking up Illinois students. Purdue and Iowa have had high Illinois student enrollment for years. Who else has benefitted?

Any publics have lower enrollments than E Illinois and Chicago St, and are still DI? (Excepting many HBCU's.)

I found this quiz online, and two of the Mississippi HBCU schools are among the smallest - they are Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State. I'm not sure exactly how old this is, but it was when Centenary was still in Division I:

http://m.sporcle.com/games/YoThisIsBay/smallNCAA

Both Alcorn State and MVSU are smaller than Chicago State, yet field football programs!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At Missouri State out-of-state tuition is lower than the in-state tuition at lot of Illinois schools.

(09-28-2016 07:02 PM)NoDak Wrote:  With enrollment down so much for some of the schools, some cheaper out of state public state schools must be picking up Illinois students. Purdue and Iowa have had high Illinois student enrollment for years. Who else has benefitted?

Any publics have lower enrollments than E Illinois and Chicago St, and are still DI?

To be clear, out-of-state public schools aren't cheaper. The segment that the state is losing are the affluent Chicago area suburban kids that didn't get into the University of Illinois but have much higher grades and test scores than what would be required at Illinois State, UIC or the directional schools. They can afford (or are at least willing to pay) out-of-state tuition rates.

Now, what I'd say is that the in-state tuition has risen enough where the higher out-of-state tuition doesn't look quite as bad, especially if there's a huge gap in academic quality. The difference in academic prestige between, say, Indiana and Eastern Illinois is quite substantial. It used to be that EIU was so inexpensive that any increased earnings potential from paying higher tuition rates at a higher prestige out-of-state school might not have been worth it. Today, paying a little more for a significantly higher prestige school out-of-state is increasingly more attractive.

Regardless, the neighboring Big Ten schools (Iowa, Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin) and other major universities (e.g. Mizzou, Iowa State, Miami of Ohio) have been enrolling huge numbers of Illinois students. Some of the large private Catholic schools in neighboring states are getting very large Illinois student contingents, too (e.g. Marquette and St. Louis University). Some farther flung places that are getting a relatively large contingent of Illinois freshmen annually (considering the distance) are Arizona State, Arizona, Colorado and Miami (Florida).

(09-28-2016 06:45 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  It's sad because this is all about the ineptitude at the state level regarding college funding. Chicago State is the canary in the coal mine - you're going to see this play out in many other states across the country sooner rather than later. What makes it worse from a societal perspective is that the public schools with the wealthier alumni bases (such as the flagships) can weather the storm, whereas the schools that serve the non-traditional students and less affluent populations where commuting to the local school is literally they ONLY way that they could ever afford to go to college are the ones that will get completely squeezed.

There's a lot of new competition for nontraditional students from online programs. And it's not just the for-profit programs, a lot of traditional colleges and universities are adding online learning as their way to grow revenue.

I certainly don't want to wish away Chicago State. I'm sure it has an important cultural role in that section of town. I would just say that it probably won't be the last school to be facing a dilemma like this.

(09-28-2016 06:45 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 06:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The state should cut its losses and allow students to transfer to UIC. It's only 12 miles away and is big enough to absorb them. From the article, it sounds like Chicago State has a decent pharmacy program so maybe that program should also move to UIC.

This would allow funding to be diverted to UIC & help make it the true "second option" that state politicians have been looking for. Other than Illinois State it's the only school big and diverse enough to be able to realistically achieve that status with only a moderate increase in spending.

This is a bit harsh, but UIC isn't going to want anything to do with Chicago State transfers. UIC is a *significantly* larger step up academically from Chicago State on the undergrad side and in a completely different universe on the graduate program side (where UIC is considered to be a legitimately upper tier school when it comes to its grad programs, particular in STEM fields). If anything, adding Chicago State transfers would detract UIC from becoming the "second option" to the University of Illinois flagship. The State of Illinois isn't losing the types of students that go to Chicago State to other states. As someone pointed out, Chicago State has an abysmal graduation rate of 11%. Instead, the students that are leaving the state because of the lack of second option are disproportionately the ones that can't get into the U of I flagship but their grades and test scores are way above the current standards for UIC and Illinois State (and Chicago State isn't even anywhere close to being on the radar for them - you'd have an easier time recruiting those students to go to school in Alaska). Those are the kids that are enrolling as out-of-state students at Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Mizzou and other nearby flagship/flagship-equivalents en masse.

The closer and somewhat reasonable academic peer to Chicago State is Northeastern Illinois University, but it's on the complete opposite side of town on the far North Side (whereas Chicago State is on the far South Side). Remember that the student population at Chicago State consists almost entirely non-traditional older commuter students that live on the South Side, are working full-time while taking classes and are generally completely reliant upon public transportation to go anywhere. Realistically, the students that are going to Chicago State now simply aren't going to be commuting up to Northeastern Illinois as those CTA bus trips would take (without exaggeration) a couple of hours or more with multiple connections and it would take an hour even if you have a car. (People need to remember that Chicago is a HUGE city both population-wise and in physical size - the distance from CSU to NEIU is 25 miles even though they're within the same city limits and that entire route consists of densely packed urban population and development.)

Now, maybe the solution is to merge Chicago State into NEIU and then make the existing Chicago State campus into the South Side branch campus of NEIU. That might address some of the financial burden since NEIU's enrollment has actually held up relatively well (and they have stronger cash flow from people that live on the North Side seeking grad programs, such as teachers looking for master's degrees to move up on their pay scales).

It's sad because this is all about the ineptitude at the state level regarding college funding. Chicago State is the canary in the coal mine - you're going to see this play out in many other states across the country sooner rather than later. What makes it worse from a societal perspective is that the public schools with the wealthier alumni bases (such as the flagships) can weather the storm, whereas the schools that serve the non-traditional students and less affluent populations where commuting to the local school is literally they ONLY way that they could ever afford to go to college are the ones that will get completely squeezed.

I agree that Chicago State isn't a peer of UIC. But if you're closing down a predominantly black school and giving their budget to UIC, you've got to throw the current students a bone.

Chicago State only has 4,300 students and not all of them will transfer. Unlike other schools in the area, UIC is big enough (29,000 students) that accepting a couple thousand transfer students won't impact them too much. It's nothing that $36 million in annual state funds won't cure.

(09-28-2016 07:01 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 06:46 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 06:25 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  While we are on the topic, EIU and SIU both have a big loss of freshman this year.

They should probably combine with SIU absorbing EIU as another major campus like they have with Edwardsville. That would save some money and duplication of programs.

Eastern Illinois is dumb directional because it doesn't have a true geographic identity like Southern Illinois does.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...story.html


School

2016 total

Total change

2016 freshmen

Freshmen change


Eastern Illinois U. 7,415 -13% 1,251 -25.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Carbondale 15,987 -7.6% 2,126 -23.7%
Western Illinois U. 10,373 -6.5% 1,527 -0.5%
Northern Illinois U. 19,015 -5.5% 1,802 -20.2%
Southern Illinois U. - Edwardsville 14,142 -0.9% 1,935 -7.7%
U. of Illinois at Chicago* 28,710 +0.3% 3,307 -5.1%
U. of Illinois at Springfield* 3,483 +1% 300 +11.9%
Illinois State U. 21,039 +1.1% 3,638 +1.5%
U. of Illinois at Urbana* 44,880 +1.8% 7,592 +0.4%

Note: University of Illinois schools show on-campus enrollment only. Western Illinois figures are for both campuses.



EIU, like the other directionals, were Teachers Colleges, and it does serve the Eastern part of the state, just like WIU, SIU and NIU do.

It had/has a different purpose than UIUC

The schools are far enough apart, and still have good overall enrollment that combining makes no sense.

Agreed. I don't think the directional school campuses themselves should be combined - they definitely have a different purpose than UIUC and the geographic and population size of Illinois makes it quite reasonable and logical to have a Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western school in each region.

Now, combining *administrations* could be a way to save costs. Instead of each school having its own separate governing body, maybe Illinois should have something similar to the California model where there's the upper tier UC system and then the next tier Cal State system. It's not so much about combining physical campuses (because I do think having separate campuses for geographic reasons serve an important purpose), but rather streamlining administrative costs.

The California model is NOT the way to go. Having statewide systems just adds another layer of bureaucracy and is a gigantic waste of time and money.

Let's put it this way: I work at a CSU school, and every payment I get, whether it's summer research support or a simple travel reimbursement, has to be approved by my department, college, and in most cases, the university. And then it goes to Sacramento to actually be paid, and they double-check every single approval. My July paycheck was held up for 7 weeks because Sacramento screwed up how they incorporated the annual raise into my summer paycheck, and no one at my campus had any authority to get it paid. Yes, in the age of e-mail, it bounced around from nimwit to nimwit for 7 whole weeks.

Maybe there's some merit to a multi-campus system if the alternative is a bunch of small schools like Chicago State & the directional schools. But 12 of the CSU's campuses have over 20,000 students. At that point the economies of scale are overwhelmed by the downside of coordinating things remotely on multiple campuses.