|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
As in Illinois (3rd place), this may lead to further emigration from those states.
By Glenn Minnis
(The Center Square) – Illinois’ in-state average tuition over the last 15 years has jumped by 49%, leaving the state with the third-highest costs in the country and many students are either leaving home to seek further education or taking on more debt to make it happen in the Land of Lincoln.
A new Illinois Policy Institute survey finds average in-state costs at the state’s 12 public universities now stands at nearly $15,000, or more than $5,000 higher than the national average.
“It would be one thing if Illinois had third best colleges in the country,” Illinois Policy Institute’s Dylan Sharkey told The Center Square. “But when you look at U.S. News and World Report and the criteria they use to assess the best state for college, Illinois doesn’t come in the top 10 for any of their criteria.”
Sharkey said a big driver of Illinois’ tuition costs are the state university pension plans.
“For fiscal year 2024, pensions will consume about 43 cents for every dollar spent on higher ed,” he said. “So that suggests that in-state students are paying more and getting less in a sense.”
In the budget that started July 1, $2.6 billion will be for higher education, an increase of nearly $76 million compared to the previous fiscal year. Increased taxpayer spending of $24.6 million also goes to operating funds for public universities and $5.9 million more for community colleges.
Besides arguing that a lot of taxpayer money never makes its way back to the classroom, Sharkey fears the onslaught of students leaving is poised to continue.
“From a personal standpoint, I know tons of people who have gone to school in Tennessee and Alabama and Texas and they simply see no reason to move back after they’re there,” he said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has acknowledged the state has experienced college-bound students leaving the state. In the new budget, he approved a $10 million increase in tax dollars for the Monetary Award Program which grants tuition funds to income-eligible Illinois students.
With the whole issue of outmigration continuing to be a growing problem for the state, Sharkey said it’s well past time for lawmakers to start addressing the issue of runaway tuition costs that are only leading to more young people walking away from Illinois for good.
“We started looking into these numbers because we’re very interested in outmigration across all ages, but particularly with younger people,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t think lawmakers pay much attention to an issue like in-state tuition because it affects young people the most. In terms of political risk, lawmakers don’t lose much by having upset young folks because they’re not going to vote in retribution.”
With Illinois also being home to the highest in-state tuition among the country’s 10 most populous states, the only states with higher costs are Vermont and New Hampshire.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Education, News Analysis
GOOD, it might put a larger financial burden on out of state kids supported by their deep pocket parents wherein here in NH they can vote. Then back at their states vote again thee. Most vote Dem / Socialist. The bottom line is NH has become Liberal. Enough that many people have moved to NH and spoiled the state But I mention of those parents that haven’t moved to the state, the kids.
GOOD! (Lol on the comment above as I thought something similar)
And make them even HIGHER! If the in-state is high, so is the out-of-state tuition, presumably.
The greater the tuition, the less chance of yet more lowlife pants dropping druggie thugs applying to VT & NH colleges and getting accepted because they are “victims” & these states need “equity” quotas met.
Can’t pay the tuitions, kiddies? Awwww……..see ya! Ya’ll have to stay in the projects.
And as for in-state prospective students, it’s a shame, however, you must now reap what your mommy & daddy have sown when they voted in Communists. Get a second job. And tell your parents to get a grip.
Vermont and NH top the nation with the most expensive in-state tuition, well it costs to hire the woke teaching professionals, to brainwash the students with all their woke ideology, indoctrination is the game plan at all levels
You will graduate, but you’ll have a feckless education and a degree that won’t get you hired anywhere. Oh well, maybe Joe will bail you out, all it takes is your vote !!
While it costs $25,000+- per year for an in-state student to attend a Vermont State University (e.g., Lyndon, Castleton), at least that includes room and board. So why all the commotion? It costs more than that to educate a first grade day student in Vermont’s public schools. And when they graduate after 12 years of schooling, it’s a 50-50 proposition whether or not they’ll be able to read at a first-grade level.
Priorities???
Thanks for reminding of our the outrageous per-pupil cost of public “education” in Vermont. Puts things in perspective. 50 years ago, you sat in a Vermont high school classroom with 35 other students and one teacher. Now your class size is 12, you have the teacher, 2 teacher’s aides, and 4 special one-on-one tutors…and the VTNEA is laughing all the way to the bank and as they write out fat checks to democrat legislators.
You mean to tell me that there are STILL people who think universities are for educating students????
HAHAHAHAHA!!
No. Universities are bloated bureaucracies whose main job is to fatten their own wallets while pretending to teach class. The administrative industrial complex has grown 4 times as fast as the student body, such that there is 4 administrators for every one student. And every one a state job, immune to the economy, and leeching off the taxpayer’s pock-marked corpse like every other state agency and program.
The students are for show.