epasnoopy
Diehard Huskie
Posts: 25,982
Joined: May 2005
Reputation: 106
I Root For: NIU Huskies
Location: Huskie Stadium |
Illinois higher education funding dwindles
Illinois higher education funding dwindles
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/...6csog1.txt
May 17, 2007
Quote:CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - With two kids in college and another headed there in two years, Dave Rotramel doesn't always run the air conditioning full blast when the weather heats up.
The Champaign food service sales rep, who calls himself middle class, says he and his wife save a few dollars wherever they can to help cover their roughly $30,000 a year in college expenses. They pay most out of pocket or through loans. Their kids, one at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and the other at Lincoln College in Normal, work to cover the rest.
"If somebody is making half my income and has two kids in college, I don't have a clue how they could do it," he said.
University of Illinois trustees voted Thursday to raise tuition and fees on the university's three campuses by an average of 11.6 percent, taking the cost of tuition, fees and housing at the Champaign-Urbana campus to about $9,450 a semester. Over the past decade the state's flagship university system has raised the cost of an education by more than 250 percent _ five times the rate at which Americans' incomes grew during that period, and eight times the rate of inflation.
And the increases at the U of I aren't unique. State schools here and across the country have ratcheted up tuition costs to help make up for dwindling government funding.
Illinois' higher-education spending has essentially been flat the past few years, hovering around $2.2 billion a year after falling from $2.4 billion in the 2003-04 fiscal year. Gov. Rod Blagojevich has proposed $2.33 billion for next year, 4 percent less than the schools had to work with in 2003-04.
In the process, educators worry, universities could be cutting ever-larger segments of the population off from higher education.
"Are we going to be cutting off significant contributors to our society because people don't have the money?" asked Vernon Burton, a history professor and Faculty Senate president at Illinois' Champaign-Urbana campus. "It's very hard on the middle class now."
Legislators, educators and college administrators agree that the state lacks the revenue to lavish money on universities. But some of them believe Illinois could do more.
Some criticize Blagojevich, who was first elected in 2002, saying higher education isn't one of his priorities.
"I have always wondered who in higher education slapped this governor in the back of the head to make him mad," said state Rep. Mike Bost, a Carbondale Republican whose district includes Southern Illinois University.
As chairman of the state Board of Higher Education from 2003 through early 2007, James Kaplan oversaw the state's public universities through the rough fiscal stretch they've endured. He fears the effects are now becoming apparent.
"Up until now, I think the administrative cuts cut into fat and not into bone," he said. "At this stage, you're cutting into bone."
For faculty, cutting bone means teaching classes of literally hundreds of students, and not always under the best of conditions, Burton said.
"In 2005 I taught a class of over 700 students in Lincoln Hall, and literally in the middle of a class a rat ran across the stage," he said. "Tiles fells off the wall."
Kaplan says he shares the blame for the stagnant funding of the past few years because he failed to convince Blagojevich that higher education should be as high a priority as primary education.
While state higher education funding increased 4 percent from fiscal 2005-06 to 2006-07 and would go up another 1.8 percent next year under the governor's budget proposal, primary education funding increased by 5 percent between 2005-06 and 2006-07 and would shoot up another 17 percent next year.
In an e-mailed statement, Blagojevich budget spokesman Justin DeJong said the governor took office with a $5 billion deficit, forcing him to limit his priorities.
"A need that was apparent was the wide disparities that existed between rich and poor school districts, and Gov. Blagojevich committed himself to bridge that gap," DeJong said.
Now that the state's revenue picture has improved _ it's up 5 percent this year _ the governor is trying to increase spending on colleges and universities, he said.
Kaplan said university presidents and faculty are at fault, too. He argues that presidents accepted meager state funding increases from lawmakers too easily, and educators, many of whom teach two or three classes in any semester, have refused to teach any more.
"It would save the state millions of dollars a year if they took on another course," Kaplan said.
Tom Hardy, a spokesman for the University of Illinois, denied that presidents were too agreeable, saying they made their case at the Statehouse and in appearances around the state.
But Illinois State University President Al Bowman said there's some truth in Kaplan's criticism.
"I think that all of us as public officials, we're somewhat reluctant to criticize a governor who inherited some significant (financial) problems," he said.
Faculty members like Burton, however, reject Kaplan's critique.
"Every faculty I know works at least 50- to 60-hour weeks, and 80-hour weeks are not uncommon," he said.
While there's disagreement over what could have been done the past few years to funnel more money to universities, most agree that not much will change until Illinois has more revenue to work with.
Some lawmakers _ with the backing of at least some university leaders, like Bowman _ want an income-tax increase. The governor wants a new business tax, a plan that the House unanimously rejected last week in a nonbinding vote.
Blagojevich has repeatedly said he won't consider an income tax increase.
|
|
/
Illinois higher education funding dwindles
