As Illinois college enrollment numbers decline, budget deficits pop up

(The Center Square) – Republican state Sen. Chapin Rose is urging top university officials across the state to be smart in taking the steps to ensure their survival at a time when at least three institutions are facing fiscal year 2024 deficits of at least $14 million.

At Northern Illinois University, school officials recently reported a $31.8 million deficit, while at Western Illinois University as many as 124 faculty and staff members were recently shown the door as part of a plan to erase a $22 million hole.

At the same time, at Southern Illinois University early projections forecast a $14 million deficit, while Chicago State and Northeastern Illinois continue to struggle with deficits nearly on par with those tabs.

Chapin laments none of it should come as much of a surprise to anyone paying much attention, especially with the way overall enrollment numbers at most schools have continued to decline.

“In Illinois, and this statistic is very dated now, but as of a few years ago we’ve lost 25,000 students off of our prime,” Rose told The Center Square. “Now you’re facing this enrollment cliff that’s coming because in ’08, ’09 and ’10 nobody had children in America during the Great Recession. You’re getting to the point where those kids should be graduating from college and there’s no kids at all.”

Since 2014, the Illinois Board of Higher Education reports undergraduate enrollment across the state has dipped by 20%, equating to 144,000 fewer students as a whole.

Rose argues the rabbit-hole runs even deeper.

“Since 1994, Illinois had 8 four-year public universities and 4 two-year upper division completer schools,” he said. “Now we’ve got 13, four year campuses. You’ve overbuilt capacity and demand is not where it was and it’s just created this sort of crisis point at many institutions. They’re all just kind of running around cannibalizing each other.”

Rose argues part of the solution lies in more schools concentrating on what they do best. Not long ago, he filed a bill known as The Excellence in Higher Education Act that would have moved more campuses to become specialists in certain areas of study, reasoning that by providing a greater value schools could attract more students and even entice more kids to remain here at home for their studies.

“Every campus has got something they’re really good at,” he said. “Take Chicago State; they’ve got a great pharmacy program, but they only had less than 200 freshmen last year. Why do they have freshmen at all? Why don’t we just become an upper division completer school and focus on the things they’re good at. Look at Western, good agriculture school.”

In the end, Rose argues every citizen, on some level, pays the price for all the dysfunction.

“We’ve had this very well documented brain drain of high school kids leaving Illinois high schools and going out of state for college and never coming back,” he said. “They’re going out of state because they’re finding value. If we focus more on the value play and less on the all things to all people, maybe we would start producing a product that those kids would want to stay in Illinois for.”

As the struggles have mounted over the years, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has increased state funding for public colleges, including allocating 2.5 billion to the cause in fiscal year 2024.