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 Public university and college
leaders in Illinois are quick to blame the state’s recent two-year budget
impasse for their financial and enrollment troubles To be sure, Illinois’ budget
impasse created difficulties for any group counting on money from the state.
But the budget debacle actually exposed a much deeper crisis in higher
education.
For decades, Illinois colleges and universities have prioritized administrators
over students, overspending on bloated bureaucracies and expensive compensation,
all while hiking student tuition. A 2015 report by the Illinois Senate
Democratic Caucus concluded: “Much of this [increase in tuition and fee] revenue
growth has been used to support an increasingly larger bureaucracy and excessive
administrative salaries.”
That’s made higher education in Illinois unaffordable for too many of Illinois’
students, especially those with limited means.
As a result, Illinois students have been forced to look for opportunities
elsewhere. According to a National Center of Education Statistics survey run
every two years, Illinois lost a net 84,000 students to other states from 2000
through 2014. Assuming the loss of students remained consistent during
non-survey years, Illinois lost at least a net 150,000 students between 2000 and
2014.
More than 16,000 students left to attend college elsewhere in 2014 alone –
before the two-year budget impasse even began.
The number of higher education
administrators has grown even as students have left. The number of
administrators in Illinois’ universities grew by more than 30 percent between
2004 and 2010. The student population, in contrast, grew by just 2.3 percent.
Universities have been paying those administrators exorbitant salaries.
According salary data from the Illinois Board of Higher Education, more than
half of Illinois’ 2,500 university administrators received a base salary of
$100,000 or more in 2015.
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The top-compensated
university administrator in 2014, University of Illinois Chancellor
Paula Allen-Meares received nearly $890,000 that year. And Dale
Chapman, the President of Lewis and Clark Community College,
received more than $540,000 in total compensation.
With those high salaries come high retirement costs. Because
university retirees’ annual pension benefits are determined in part
by their final average salaries, large salary increases coupled with
generous pension rules, have boosted the retirement benefits of
university employees far beyond what taxpayers can afford.
Of the more than 52,000 current State Universities Retirement
System, or SURS, retirees, over 50 percent retired in their 50s,
many with full pension benefits.
Almost half will see their annual pension benefits double over the
course of their retirement, based on approximate life expectancies.
And over 40 percent will receive more than $1 million in total
retirement benefits, and over 7,400 (14 percent) will receive more
than $2 million in benefits.
With those numbers, it’s no surprise pension costs now consume half
of all state contributions to higher education.
To pay for administrative excesses, student tuition and fees at
public universities grew anywhere from 75 to 110 percent between
2006 and 2016.
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the public
university with the highest tuition and fee costs in the state,
average tuition now costs $15,626 annually, up 80 percent since
2006.
 Today, Illinois’
average in-state tuition and fees for public universities is over
$13,000. That’s about 50 percent higher than in neighboring states.
The budget impasse was harmful, but blaming it for all of the
state’s higher education woes only distracts from the problems
Illinois universities created themselves. Universities should bring
their costs in line with what students can afford. If not, the
student exodus will continue.
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