Pritzker highlights planned higher ed investments in UI visit

Apr. 6—URBANA — On the heels of local elections and a statewide bout of severe weather, Gov. J.B. Pritzker made a stop at the University of Illinois to tout intended investments in higher education.

Pritzker's Illinois operating budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 contains a $697.1 million appropriation for the UI System's general funds, which would be a near-$42 million increase over this fiscal year's appropriation.

His proposal recommends $80.5 million more overall in state funding for public universities and a record $100 million bump in Monetary Award Program financial aid. About 44 percent of undergraduates across the UI's three campuses receive MAP aid.

"Illinois colleges and universities are the most powerful tools that we have to build prosperity in all of our communities," Pritzker said from the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Flanked by local and state representatives, including state Sen. Paul Faraci (D-Champaign), Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) and Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin, along with UI System President Tim Killeen and College of ACES Dean Germán Bollero, Pritzker doubled down on a couple higher-ed related goals: making college more affordable and keeping state university enrollments high.

UI senior Nariah Romero-Rudy, a Danville native studying integrative biology, told the audience how four years of tuition from the Illinois Commitment, MAP grants and state financial aid allowed her to focus her studies on genetic counseling.

When her younger sister went through a bout of leukemia, her family's positive experience with the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital oncologist in Memphis pushed Romero-Rudy to pursue the field. She's set to become the first member of her immediate family to graduate college.

"I've had the incredible privilege of being able to focus on my studies and explore the many opportunities available at the University of Illinois without the pressure and burden of wondering how I'm going of fund my education," she said.

In fall 2022, UIUC welcomed its second-largest freshman class ever, with 7,957 first-year students. Only the previous class — 8,303 freshmen — surpassed it in size.

Freshman enrollment went up by 5 percent at Illinois public universities but decreased by 2.4 percent across the country, Pritzker said.

"Restoring public funding directly to our universities alleviates the need to raise tuition. Are there trustees in the audience? Because I want you to hear that message, especially," Pritzker said.

The budget proposal suggests sending $8.3 million for dual-credit and non-credit workforce grant programs for community colleges in the state.

"We want our high school students in Illinois to able to go to UIUC and all of our universities as opposed to going to out-of-state institutions because the cost might seem more affordable," Ammons said.

As usual, the state's appropriation to the UI likely won't meet what the system requested earlier this fiscal year ($731.77 million), but Killeen expressed his gratitude to state lawmakers.

"Governor Pritzker and members of the General Assembly have consistently shown their commitment to public higher education and their belief in its ability to deliver for the people of Illinois," Killeen said.

Before his next stop in Springfield, Pritzker offered his thoughts on the winner of the Chicago mayoral race Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and former education organizer. Pritzker congratulated Johnson over the phone last night shortly after his win.

"He's younger than most of the mayors who have gotten elected; he's somebody who comes out of an activist background; I think there's a lot to admire — he's a teacher — I think he will bring a certain vibrancy to the city," Pritzker said.

On school board elections, the governor said voters "saw through the (right-wing) extremists who were running for school board across the (Chicago) suburbs especially."

"I'm glad those folks were shown up and frankly tossed out," Pritzker said.

Asked how the state plans to respond to youth gun violence, the governor first mentioned the recently passed assault weapons ban in the state, but focused his answer on providing resources for mental health and substance-abuse treatment, which he said would take a "huge burden" off police.

"What's going to keep young people who are legally allowed to own a gun from using it in a violent crime, we've got to make sure we're addressing poverty, that we're getting people jobs, that we're lifting up communities that have been left out and left behind," Pritzker said. "It's often those circumstances in which people end up committing a crime, because they feel they have no other choices."