Pritzker, and his capital plan, can drive the reinvention of Illinois’ public universities
There are lots of smiles on the campuses of Illinois public universities these days, especially among administrators. Before long, big money will flow their way for construction and renovation projects.
As part of the $45 billion, six-year public works spending bill signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, about $3.2 billion is earmarked for colleges and universities. There’s $100 million for a new quantum information science building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and $89.2 million to overhaul Milner Library at Illinois State. There’s $15.8 million for a health sciences and pharmacy lab at Chicago State, plus lots more.
Don’t just rehab. Reimagine.
Colleges have to invest in buildings, just as they need to invest in talent — the professors who teach and do research.
But as we look over highlights of the university spending plans amid falling enrollment and Illinois’ weak financial condition, we ask with some urgency: Wouldn’t it be smarter for Pritzker to use this capital process to reimagine the mission and structure of public higher education across Illinois?
In other words, isn’t this the ideal time for the governor to reform the university system to make sure the $3.2 billion — and future tranches of taxpayer money — deliver a future-focused outcome rather than a mere rehab of the dilapidated status quo?
Universities and the ‘Illinois Exodus’
Illinois’ approach to running its universities no longer works. According to preliminary state statistics, overall enrollment plummeted about 12% from 2008 to 2018 among the 12 state universities — which, comically, are overseen by nine parochial board of trustees. It’s a scheme you’d expect from the Department of Redundancy Department.
And in a sorry contribution to the population loss we often describe as the “Illinois Exodus,” this state is hemorrhaging students: In 2017, nearly half of all public high school graduates who enrolled in four-year universities went to out-of-state institutions. In 2002 the share of kids going elsewhere was less than 30%.
Pause to let that sink in: Nearly half of public school students spurn the universities their own families’ tax dollars built, and support, in order to leave Illinois — often just across the border to Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa. Some flee farther: The University of Alabama is a much more popular destination for Chicago-area kids than you’d imagine.
Like a row of ice cream stands that only serve vanilla, several of Illinois’ public universities aren’t as unique and appealing as they should be to Illinois students.
To stop dwindling, specialize
The logical conclusion: Illinois public universities need a rethink. Many don’t differentiate themselves, in Illinois or nationally. Yes, some do better than others at serving up more than plain vanilla. But a few really struggle — including Chicago State University, whose enrollment in fiscal 2018 was less than half of what it was in 2008.
What should be done to improve school performance and attract more students? Pritzker, a businessman who surely sees that many of the universities have lost their luster, can demand that they specialize in certain areas of academic focus. Sure, let each offer some courses in all major disciplines, but concentrate upper-level offerings in each field at one or two campuses. Pritzker also can demand answers to questions that boards and administrators always duck: Should some of Illinois’ dwindling universities merge? Given demographic trends, should any of them be mothballed? Should one or two evolve into, say, residential community colleges with two-year career training?
These questions haven’t gotten a serious hearing. That’s partly because the schools are too busy competing with one another for scarce funding, and partly because Illinois’ higher ed industry is more interested in self-perpetuation than in student-focused reinvention.
As is, the schools have little incentive to coordinate or differentiate by concentrating their advanced degree programs in distinctive academic fields.
That’s why you get so much unimaginative overlap, such as both Eastern Illinois University and Western Illinois now in line to get $100 million science buildings. The rationale is that both schools need new science buildings … to continue doing business as usual. Never mind that, at both universities, enrollment has plummeted.
Western Illinois’ new course: Money burning 101
Meanwhile, WIU President Jack Thomas, who just stepped down from that position, will get a lavish exit package despite a new law intended to halt these giveaways. He’ll get two years’ paid leave at $270,000 a year and then return to teach two classes per year, earning $220,000 a year or possibly much more, depending on how you read the contract language.
Governor, Western Illinois has confronted you with one more reason to bring business sensibilities to an irresponsible state-funded industry that continues to waste money on golden parachutes.
This is a state that can’t pay its bills on time, that borrows too much and, lest anyone forget, that is losing population.
Yet the demand for money continues. The state‘s annual budget Pritzker signed includes $1.16 billion to cover day-to-day operations at the 12 public universities, a 5% increase over last year, the Tribune reports. Universities sought increases to help recover from a previous two-year budget impasse, which is their increasingly tired excuse for just about everything.
Here’s your moment, Governor
There’s a better way to manage public higher ed, and Pritzker is the newcomer who can make that happen. As we’ve written, the now-balkanized version of Illinois higher ed should be reinvented as a more unified system: innovative, costeffective, disciplined, stripped of redundancies. Aware of its mission to serve different students at different locales — and strictly allocating its resources according to the specialized curriculums many of those students seek at out-ofstate schools.
We asked Nyle Robinson, interim executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, if a rethink is in the cards. We were glad to hear him, too, say the arrival of a new governor “is an obvious time to have such discussions.”
Let Illinois have that discussion, Gov. Pritzker, on a tight schedule. Involve state lawmakers, the universities, students, members of the business community. But also involve smart thinkers from Wisconsin, California, New York and other states with better-managed higher ed systems.
Illinois students want the best, most affordable education available. They’re leaving the state because many have decided that education isn’t offered here. Many will start their careers and families elsewhere — and never return.
The future’s at stake, Governor, for students, their parents, their communities and Illinois employers who pay taxes here yet often wind up hiring graduates from other states.
Don’t pour more billions into the obviously moribund business as usual. Revive and enhance Illinois’ public universities. Deploy your capital plan dollars to reinvent them.