Updates to faculty layoff plan and other stuff

[wiu712]

From today's "McDonough County Voice":
Marching for MAP
http://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/news/2016 ... for8200map

While it was encouraging to see the university community united and energized on Tuesday, it would have been better for the SGA and faculty union to have chartered some busses to Springfield today for Governor Rauner's Budget Address. It's only an 80 mile trip.

[wiu712]

Gov Rauner's 2017 Budget is pushing for at least a 25% cut in higher education.

The cuts are not as steep as last year’s budget proposal. However, after almost 8 months with no state revenues, this seems a bit harsh.

Rauner's long-term goal is to privatize the state's university system. He is a big-backer of the "DeVry Model".

Cut 25%:
Chicago State
Eastern Illinois
Illinois State
Northeastern Illinois
Southern Illinois
University of Illinois
Western Illinois


Cut 26%:
Governor's State


Cut 27%:
Northern Illinois

[WIU0812]

I wonder why they went after 27% for Northern Illinois? Perhaps they receive more assistance than others?

If we are really heading towards becoming a partially private version of a university we need to get a panel together of individuals in the school and start reviewing the processes that have worked in past and hopefully begin a slow implementation towards becoming more independent from the state instead of just all of a sudden we have to support ourselves which seems to be what is happening. I am sure there is a way to make Western profitable again, but it may take a year or two to implement a plan along with lots of outside help and input from experts and other schools which have succeeded. It also may involve making moves that will piss off some people, but during budget crisis no one will be happy you just end up having some that are mad and some that are upset and the mad scream their opinions and fight hard to stop change and the upset ones understand that something has to be done to fix this our things will only get worse so they go along and make the best of a bad situation and try to help out where they can.

[sealhall74]

College is just a completely different beast today than it was 40-50 years ago. Back then, kids went off to college (whether public or private) with less focus on what career they were ultimately headed to and more a "hippie" mentality (chance to get away from home for first time, maybe meet a soul mate, explore new horizons). If we took a survey of kids back then and today, I think we would find more back then ending up in very satisfying jobs and careers that they had know idea they would end up in when they first showed up at college. Those first couple of years were a time to sort things out, figure where you wanted to go. The Devry model assumes you pretty much know where you want to go the moment you step in the door of a college. The Devry model would chop into the serious student debt problem somewhat by eliminating a bunch of useless (not job-related) courses. After some thought, I would not trade my "old school" journey away for anything Rauner can come up with it. That probably means if I head off to college in this day and age, I end up somewhere other than one of Rauner's model public universities.

[WIU0812]

Continuing rant: I see things from both sides, I do not want to have to get rid of anything that hurts anyone or makes anyone's lives harder, but the State is essentially a huge business and you can not operate in the red. I hate to say it, but it is going to take a bunch of changing to make this state balanced. Most likely going to end up having to make a vast number of cuts along with finding a way to make state business and resident friendly to get more tax payers in the state. Unfortunately we most likely are going to end up taxing the ones who already live here more rather than trying to tax the same and bring in more people and business. However it happens this mess needs to be fixed and even though money is just an idea and really is worth nothing everyone needs to realize that spending 4 billion more than what you have is not a real plan and fixes nothing. This whole situation is frustrating, screw it I am moving to Texas.

[sealhall74]

History tells us that when all else fails, you can always go to war to fix most problems. But it must be a really BIG war.

[leatherface]

I believe someone told me- or I read- that the current governor attended Ivy League schools for his college education. One might question if he has an appreciation and understanding of the mission and value of state supported- non profit schools. My limited experiences with for profit schools is they become expensive, questionable over all quality, and of course do not give the "whole" experience of learning in a campus environment.

They can be beneficial because they offer what adults are looking for at convenient access.

Is there waste in Illinois higher education- absolutely. I don't believe revamping the entire funding is the answer. Maybe there are too many public colleges in Illinois, maybe all of them don't need to try and support D-1 athletics, maybe some of the programs attracting marginal students should be cut, and maybe community colleges along with their career and technical programs should be encouraged.

[wiu712]

Maybe there are too many public colleges in Illinois, maybe all of them don't need to try and support D-1 athletics.

UIS plays at the NCAA Division 2 level.
Governor's State plays in the NAIA.
Northeastern Illinois offers club sports.

Declining enrollments means that less money is generated via student fees to support athletics.

Former Summit League member Centenary dropped from NCAA Division 1 to NCAA Division 3 in 2011.

[WIU0812]

I believe someone told me- or I read- that the current governor attended Ivy League schools for his college education. One might question if he has an appreciation and understanding of the mission and value of state supported- non profit schools. My limited experiences with for profit schools is they become expensive, questionable over all quality, and of course do not give the "whole" experience of learning in a campus environment.

They can be beneficial because they offer what adults are looking for at convenient access.

Is there waste in Illinois higher education- absolutely. I don't believe revamping the entire funding is the answer. Maybe there are too many public colleges in Illinois, maybe all of them don't need to try and support D-1 athletics, maybe some of the programs attracting marginal students should be cut, and maybe community colleges along with their career and technical programs should be encouraged.

This article may shed some light on schools situations in the DII level. http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/med ... -increases .

It does not unfortunately show the cost differences between DI and DII, but looks like the DI is much better off from a revenue vs expense compared to that of a DII. Though that does not mean there would not be some cost savings, it just means that it may be less than we think. I am really not for going to DII becuase I think it is not going to be as big of savings as anyone thinks. I do however agree that if it is what it takes to keep school alive then so be it, I would rather survive than run into ground while trying to over do our capabilities. We would be a big DII though so I think overall on athletics they could maybe save $250,000 to possibly $750,000 depending on what they cut as well.

http://winthropintelligence.com/2013/04 ... -smallest/

[sealhall74]

One thing we might consider is to start offering up the Associate Degree for a few select program areas. Both SDSU and USD do it. For some jobs, two years of prep is plenty and making kids stick around for 4 years accumulating a lot of debt serves no useful purpose to them.