Editorial: To keep more college students in state, Illinois must keep tuition affordable

Yahoo

09-03-2025

Illinois is home to some of the finest universities in the country. But it's losing students to out-of-state colleges, and many of these young people are choosing not to come home after graduation.
What's driving students to head for out-of-state options? It's pretty simple: tuition costs, financial aid and perceived 'quality.'
Nearly half of the Illinois high school graduates who go on to college are pursuing degrees out of state, according to research from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Their top six destinations are all in the Midwest: Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Ohio.
By comparison, IBHE notes that in 2002, just 29% of four-year, college-going high school graduates enrolled outside of Illinois.
To his credit, Gov. JB Pritzker is taking this issue seriously.
'There is a 70% likelihood that when they get to whatever that university is outside of Illinois, they're not coming back,' said Pritzker at a news conference earlier this month. 'That's a real problem, so we want to keep our best and brightest in the state.'
To fix it, he supports legislation to allow community colleges to offer four-year degrees.
Increasing the supply of four-year degree options is good for everyone except the existing four-year public universities — we like options, not least of all because more choices for students means schools have to compete for applicants. Competition means providing good programming and keeping costs low for would-be attendees.
And while many of our more prominent higher education institutions have the programming bit down, tuition is pricing out Illinois students and their families.
Forget about private institutions such as Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, where annual tuition costs the same as the down payment for a new home. Look at our state institutions.
In 2000, in-state tuition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for an in-state student was $4,526.
Today, tuition is about four times as much, ranging from $18,046 to $23,426 depending on what degree program a student pursues. When you factor in housing and food costs, plus books, supplies and other expenses, the total cost is over $40,000 a year. For an in-state student.
This price tag induces anxiety in the hearts of parents the state over, who are socking away money in the hopes of being able to help their kids get a good degree. For kids whose parents can't afford to help out, the prospect of taking on $160,000 in student loans is not appealing. In the 1990s and early 2000s, many college students took out loans to be able to afford a college degree, a decision that left them with five-figure or six-figure debt to pay off. After witnessing the resultant financial stress Gen X and millennials have experienced, it's not hard to understand why the next generation is much more risk-averse.
Community college is less expensive — tuition and fees at Harper College in the northwest suburbs are just $4,839 per year. That's why many students opt to begin their college careers by getting required credits out of the way for less at community colleges. It's just far more affordable.
Yes, expanding community college degree offerings is a good thing. It won't, in our opinion, go far enough to keep college kids in-state. Only competitive tuition pricing at our major four-year institutions can do that.
Like everything in Illinois, it all comes back to the money. It's no coincidence that the cost of funding the State Universities Retirement System is consuming a much larger share of the higher education budget. With more state higher education money going toward SURS pension costs, students and their families have to make up the difference. In 2002, the state paid for about 72% of public university costs on average, while students covered 28% through tuition and fees. By 2020, this had nearly reversed, with the state covering only 35.6% on average and students paying 64.4%, according to IBHE. If this trend continues, our public institutions will remain uncompetitive — and so will our workforce.
The rising cost of college tuition is an example of how everyday people feel the burden of increasing state government debt and expenses.
Brain drain is the painful result.
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