Eye On Illinois: Never a better time to get involved in future of public higher education

We are due for a reckoning.

At the risk of being hyperbolic, the news coming out of Monday’s House Appropriations Higher Education Committee meeting should’ve clarified what several other developments have long indicated: the current approach to funding and delivering education following high school graduation must be reconfigured.

Whether it be problems at one campus, like the $20 million deficit at Western Illinois University, larger issues higher ed isn’t completely addressing, such as staffing shortages in fields that require a college diploma, or nationwide trends affecting public and private schools like declining enrollment and student loan debt, there are plenty of headlines in recent years indicating it’s time to do more than just patch holes and hope for sunny skies.

If you read the March 1 report from the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding (tinyurl.com/IllinoisEPUFR), you’ve already seen some of the dire projections (Illinois is underfunding public higher ed by $1.4 billion) and suggested solutions (an evidence-based funding formula similar to the recent overhaul in K-12 spending). But you don’t need to have digested (or agreed with) those 89 pages to know a 450-word newspaper column is grossly oversimplifying a complex issue, one that stands likely to define whether this generation of leaders capably paved the way for the next.

This isn’t to say elected and administrative officials haven’t been trying. That the CEPUF existed at all is a good sign, that it crafted such a thorough document is another. To be fair to everyone in Illinois, we’re dealing with a nationwide challenge, given both the federal government’s role in student lending and the propensity of high school graduates to want to move away from home.

As the father of four, from ages 10 through 20, this issue lands at my kitchen table. We’ve had a great experience with our local community college and full-time employment. Conversations with adult friends always seem to include whose kid goes where and for how much. We’ve gone over the high school course selections and agonized over what is truly required and why. Admissions overtures from our own private, liberal arts college force acknowledging the cuts made to programs we valued as undergraduates.

It’s laughingly easy for some goof with a keyboard to tell everyone else they really need to reconsider the way they do absolutely everything, but declining enrollment and aging infrastructure are impossible to ignore. My personal belief is we could do a lot of good by rethinking 11th and 12th grades in conjunction with leveraging community college resources, but that’s just one idea.

If nothing else, let Monday’s meeting remind us this issue will only grow in importance and expense. There will never be a better time to get involved.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. Follow him on X @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.