http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-university-of-illinois-tuition-20150105-story.html
“However, he said, the university expects about $25 million in additional tuition revenue during the 2015-16 school year in part because of increased enrollment in some programs and higher graduate student tuition.”
Which programs are seeing increased enrollment? Are they accepting more students than usual for the upcoming freshman class?
That is a bit misleading. The vast majority of that $25 million will be the result of in-state students graduating and being replaced with both higher tuition paying in-state freshman AND a higher percentage of OOS freshman. This is sorta mentioned later in the paragraph, although they don’t mention the impact that the percentage of OOS students has on the math. When you combine the four year tuition difference with the four year change in OOS enrollment (and consider that most of that OOS enrollment is in the much more expensive Business and Engineering schools), it is easy to see why tuition revenue should be jumping.
With that said though, the COE is expanding to try to meet the massive demand (they seem to be putting up a new building every other year), but it will only be a small part of the $25 million mentioned.
They establish in the articles that tuition is negatively affecting yield; it is too high and students are getting better deals elsewhere.
What on earth is the purpose of freezing tuition at that “too high” rate??
Either lower it or come up with more merit $; freezing tuition will accomplish nada. Seems like a PR stunt, although to what end I have no idea.
I just want to say, PR move or not, I’ll be happy if the tuition freeze comes to fruition.
As for the comment about “come up with more merit $”, that is much easier said than done. Lowering tuition could be disastrous when considering the state (Rauner) wants to cut funding.
Students will have to see how the university works through the fiscal challenges. Prospective students will need to factor in personal financial concerns and ROI when making their college decisions.
Other similar sized schools don’t seem to have any problem coming up with merit money to attract top students.
Nothing is going to change without a dramatic shift in strategy. Freezing tuition accomplished absolutely nothing. They will continue to lose top students to either more prestigious schools or cheaper schools (obviously, as they had the same tuition last year and record low in-state yield).
Either you are a target school for top in-state students (Michigan, Virginia, UCs, etc), or you have to pay to keep those top students in-state. The most you can say for Illinois is that it is a partial target for certain departments/Colleges. Efforts should focus on changing that situation, as they are a lot closer than most schools (the 2nd state-flagship proposal is the right way to go here).
Freezing tuition does nothing to increase status as a target school and by definition doesn’t make school any cheaper for top students looking at OOS schools (that are much cheaper with merit $). No one said it would be easy, but freezing tuition does zilch, except make COA slightly cheaper than it would have been for those students who would have enrolled anyway. Utter waste of time.
Have you done any research or read up on the matter? What are you looking at when making your statement. Look at the "Big Ten Endowments"chart in the following article.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/09/big_ten_why_is_rutgers_behind_in_the_fundraising_game.html
Also note: I do believe UIUC should look to increase alumni donations. However, we shouldn’t be naive with what can come with it…just look at the Salaita incident.
Oops, first of all my previous post was directed at “Other similar sized schools don’t seem to have any problem coming up with merit money to attract top students.”
Concerning the impact of freezing tuition I’m not going to argue that point. I was just stating I’m happy as the parent of a prospective in-state student that there may not be an increase.
But I will add that we are looking at OOS options. I would caution you to not overstate the amounts OOS equivalent schools are giving based solely on merit…emphasis on “equivalent schools”. As a NMSF my son was offered several full rides, but they were not schools we would even consider since out-of-pocket expense is not our first priority.
Lastly, I don’t know what you mean by the “2nd state-flagship proposal”. If you have the time could you give me a quick explanation? Thanks!
Can you be more specific?
I would be happy to elaborate on any of my statements. I do believe that Illinois is in a unique position to improve its status, yet chooses not to do so. This I would change if I were in charge.
They seem overly concerned, pathologically even, with people in-state ‘liking’ them. There are 11 other public Universities in the state of Illinois; there is a school for everyone. It’s okay to position UIUC as the school for the very best students (like Michigan is positioned). I understand that many people think this is already the case, but they are wrong. The very top students fly the coop in large numbers (and there are a lot of them).
What about the endowment chart do you want me to take note of?
Many of those schools, with more or less the same $ as Illinois, are very aggressive with offering merit scholarships to top students from Illinois.
Sorry on my phone and cross posted without noticing your next comments. I will revert
I am only comparing UIUC to other schools that are enrolling supposed top-students from Illinois. Obviously we are not talking about the most selective and prestigious meets-full-need schools, no one expects UIUC to win those cross-admit duels.
It doesn’t matter if you or I believe that Purdue is equivalent to UIUC, because it is undeniable that students are turning down UIUC every year to attend Purdue with merit money (and Iowa, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, etc). Ditto those full scholarship schools you refer to as ‘not equivalent’. There are many Illinois residents that reject UIUC every year for those schools. This makes them equivalent regardless of whether you or I would make the same choice.
That is the whole point; that supposedly inferior OOS publics are winning cross-admit duels with UIUC…
It’s mostly about the money. You want the kids, spend the money (and while you’re at it, stop pandering to whiny parents by canceling your EA program to protect their feelings).
Illinois may not be rolling in money, but they do have it to spend on certain students. They for the most part choose not to do so, while complaining out of the other side of their mouths about low yield.
Can’t link easily from my phone, but search for “Naperville legislature wants Big Ten to add another Illinois school” in the Naperville Sun.
It is just a proposal for a feasibility study, and some of the justifications are just silly, but they are definitely on the right track.
I would go much further. Get OOS enrollment up to 50% at UIUC and start filling all departments with tip top students. Create a real honors program and use merit money aggressively to make it all happen. Illinois has the population of top tier students to make it possible. The new flagship can support the overflow of good (but not tip top) students who are crowded out.
It would take many years to pull off but in the end you would have (well, could have) a much higher percentage of tip top students staying in the state (and not just for school) and a much more financially stable University system (due to both OOS tuition and the increase in prestige which will feed directly into endowment*). You would not have the yield problem you have now because UIUC would be the ultimate target school for Illinois residents (as U of Michigan is for it’s residents).
Think big or go home. Lots of small thinkers at UIUC. Just look at the cancelation of EA and the disaster it hath wrought with the 35 day application extension.
*oops dropped my note off last post
Was going to comment on the Rutgers article. Like Illinois, high school grads apparently can’t wait to get out of New Jersey, and very few from OOS travel in. I think they actually have a worse ratio than Alaska and Hawaii; at least they used to. It leaves me to wonder what type of parents (donators) live in New Jersey, and whether they are more or less likely to be generous with giving to Rutgers if they are alums.
All state schools are a fall back for certain students, to some extent. It seems though that Rutgers in particular is a place where a solid portion of the student body resents having to attend. This might be my College Confidential experience coloring my perspective, but their low endowment doesn’t surprise me at all.
Currently enjoying the tuition freeze at UW-Madison!
As they are enjoying it at a Purdue and Iowa!
Illinois is simply coming late to the party. How is this gonna help their yield again?
Just got back in front of the computer. Where to start? 
- "The very top students fly the coop in large numbers (and there are a lot of them)." "It's mostly about the money." My take: this is a situation UIUC needs to study/address, BUT there are many factors at play. We should not assume it's because of the lack of aid. (The actual numbers of high stat students who go OOS for financial reasons would be very interesting.....though I have no idea how that could be determined.)
From personal experience (for what that is worth) the top students from my area (suburban, considered affluent) go to OOS schools for a variety of reasons. Often it’s for their intended major and the prestige of the school…MIT, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, etc.
Others choose to go OOS because they want to get away from Illinois and the cold weather. And even a couple of extremely intelligent students are probably going out of state, because they wish to continue their high level music studies in tandem with their STEM field.
- "It doesn't matter if you or I believe that Purdue is equivalent to UIUC, because it is undeniable that students are turning down UIUC every year to attend Purdue with merit money (and Iowa, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, etc). Ditto those full scholarship schools you refer to as 'not equivalent'. There are many Illinois residents that reject UIUC every year for those schools. This makes them equivalent regardless of whether you or I would make the same choice."
I guess I would agree with this statement if I had personal experience with your Purdue example. The students from our school who went to Purdue for engineering were not accepted to UIUC engineering. They did not want to go DGS and have to earn their way into the College of Engineering. They were very good students, but not at the top of the class. I call this self-selecting out. The same applied to many of my daughter’s friends who eventually went to Indiana, because they were not accepted EA to the College of Business.
I understand that I have focused on engineering and business. As for other majors, I know a few who chose Mizzou, because of its school of journalism…it doesn’t hurt that establishing residency and obtaining in-state tuition rates at Mizzou is very easy.
**** I have to run now, but will try to login later. ****
You don’t have to assume it’s about a lack of aid; Illinois is telling you it’s about price; why else the tuition freeze to try and alleviate the problem? Of course there are a variety of reasons (my kid is resistant for a lot of reasons besides money and he is a CS kid who should be over the moon to attend Illinois), but Illinois is telling us (as do counselors, consultants and anyone else who is directly involved) that a very big one is money.
Likewise, you don’t need personal experience re: Purdue because Illinois is telling us that falling yield is the reason for the tuition freeze. They are not talking about losing NMFs to Harvard and MIT; they are referring directly to neighboring state public schools, like Purdue which I just chose as an illustration, that are competing on price. This isn’t an anecdote in search of further examples, it is a postulate given by the school itself.
And Re: Business (kinda) and especially Engineering; These are the highest yield Colleges at Illinois. If every College were as well regarded as these, Illinois would not be stressing over falling yield, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
In the end, sure, there are many reasons to go elsewhere besides price, but many of those reasons are alleviated if the school did a better job of attracting top students. It’s a dynamic system. Attract the best students, makes school more desirable to top OOS students, makes the school more diverse and less of a same-kids-as-high school feel, which attracts more top students, which means less reliance on non English speaking internationals, which again leads to better students across more fields (instead of COE and Biz being the only schools for OOS students), which all helps turn the whole school into a target for top students and solves the yield problem. I know, sounds so easy, but money in the right places will get the wheels turning.
Wow, shattered my record on longwinded-ness today
I think the situation concerning yield is not unique to UIUC. Hoping our state school can adapt to the ever-changing higher education landscape.
Ultimately, attracting, retaining and graduating top students requires big $. Not just in the form of aid, but also staff, capital improvements, etc.
This >>>> “Attract the best students, makes school more desirable to top OOS students, makes the school more diverse and less of a same-kids-as-high school feel, which attracts more top students, which means less reliance on non English speaking internationals, which again leads to better students across more fields (instead of COE and Biz being the only schools for OOS students), which all helps turn the whole school into a target for top students and solves the yield problem.”…is a double-edged sword for in-state students. In fact I have heard the following comparison for Engineering and Business: they are like private universities within a large state school. The higher the demand for admittance makes it much more difficult for very capable in-state students to get in. It also supports the belief that those two colleges can charge a premium.
P.S. And as a side note, I’d like to mention that some of the OOS schools awarding large merit $, are non-renewable. Something prospective students need to research.
**** have to run will be back later *****