Here's my enrollment tracking spreadsheet for all the public universities in the state:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
The 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year change tabs show % changes over that timeframe for each school.
Total enrollment for all public universities is up .3% (538 students).
EIU - up 10.5%
U of I - up 2.22%
NIU - up .96%
UIC - up .38%
ISU - down .76%
SIU-E - down 1.54%
WIU - down 1.76%
GSU - down 2.37%
SIU-C - down 2.81%
UIS - down 3.02%
NEIU - down 3.97%
CSU - down 11.7% (2,620 students total)
I'm wondering how much longer Chicago State can sustain as a DI school honestly. It feels like what the state needs to do is take CSU and Governors State and merge them into two campuses of one university. They'd have a total of 7,268 students (based on this fall's enrollment), they're about 30 minutes from each other down I-57 (or about 90 minutes if you take the Metra...both have stops on the Metra Electric District (ME) line).
My idea...based on nothing outside of my personal feelings, and not taking into account local politics:
Merge the two schools under the Chicago State name, have Chicago State and Chicago State - University Park (like we have WIU and WIU-QC)
CSU is currently DI in the WAC (huge travel costs) and GSU is NAIA in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (minimal travel costs)...meet in the middle. New CSU athletics should aim for joining the DII GLIAC. GLIAC is almost entirely public universities across Michigan, but also includes nearby schools such as Purdue University-Northwest (just over the Indiana border) and UW-Parkside (just across the Wisconsin border). The GLIAC is also losing a school next year, so they may be interested in adding someone.
In the GLIAC, all but 3 of the schools are "bus distance" (less than 5 hours), with Purdue Northwest being only ~30 minutes away. 3 of the schools in far northern Michigan would probably need to be flights (all are ~7 hours or slightly less via bus), but would be very quick flights. Compare that to a map of the places CSU currently flies to for the WAC (this is a map of the full members, but even with affiliates, the closest schools are in TX or CO):

So, from an athletic standpoint, they'd save a lot on travel costs and they'd save some on fewer scholarships. They'd also stand a chance at actually winning some games (something they haven't done much of in most sports in at least 7-8 years).
Academically, they could split some of the programs between the two. Business would probably be at both (they both currently have fairly large business departments), Education/Teaching at Chicago State, Liberal Arts stuff at the "Governors State campus", etc. Combining many of the administrative offices would also save costs, similarly to how we have some offices in Macomb that handle everything for the QC campus as well (HR, for example) or offices in the QC where they only have a small number of people to do local coordination of things (we have 3 people in QC Admissions, 1 person in QC Academic Advising, etc.)
Anyway, I know there's other things to consider (there's political will behind Chicago State continuing as-is), but it seems to make sense to do something like that.