The Illinois Capitol  

Illinois’ public universities have a major problem with deferred maintenance and executing capital projects, university presidents and officials told a House committee on Monday. 

The House Appropriations- Higher Education Committee held a subject matter hearing on Monday where leaders from the state’s universities explained their capital needs to state lawmakers and explained how prior state allocations haven’t been released to the universities. The hearing came as legislators consider making changes to how annual funding increases for state universities is calculated.  

“I believe if we were adequately funded, we could attract students and we would be announcing, in addition to announcing an increase in our freshman population, we would also be able to announce an increase in our graduate population,” Chicago State University (CSU) President Dr. Z Scott told the committee. 

CSU, located on 95th Street where the Dan Ryan and Bishop Ford expressways merge, provided state lawmakers a bleak example of what happens when a state university is underfunded and capital dollars, despite being appropriated, don’t get released by the Capital Development Board. At CSU, enrollment continues to decline, there is $89 million of deferred maintenance plus $192 million of capital needs and renovations haven’t been completed since buildings were built in the 1960s. Even a project to fix elevators and ensure university buildings remain compliant with disability laws has stalled since 2018 over funding and labor issues. There’s also millions more Scott wants to update obsolete labs and build housing for students.   

“The biggest competitor to Chicago State is nowhere,” Scott said. “Students are not attending college. This state has seen a 37 percent decline in Black student enrollment in our colleges in the last 10 years. That is a crisis for this state it we are concerned about workforce and diversity in our workforce.” 

Illinois universities saw a 2 percent funding increase this year — below the rate of inflation. That’s only caused more issues at CSU. 

“As a result, we have pushed operation expenditures to future years,” Scott said. “The constraints of this year’s allocation does not cover the growing union contractual obligations nor the increase in the cost of goods and services.” 

Further south at Governors State University (GSU) in University Park, Vice President of Administration and Finance Dr. Corey Bradford said most buildings on campus have significant components all reaching the end of their lifetime since being built 50 years ago.  

Students at GSU and Illinois State University (ISU) are also paying a facility fee each semester —$585 at GSU and $450 at ISU — because state funds aren’t enough to pay for critical maintenance.  

“This is a tax on their dreams that should be the state’s responsibility,” Bradford said.  

ISU President Dr. Aondover Tarhule said the Normal school has more than $400 million of deferred maintenance. As one example, he said the state appropriated money for a project in 2010 that hasn’t made it beyond the design phase and the university has spent $17 million over the last 14 years to create new space for learning as they’ve been waiting years for the project to start.  

“They’re still state buildings and the state has a responsibility to maintain the facilities for the students that actually attend,” committee chair Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) said.  

Improving a university’s physical appearance is critical to attracting students, Eastern Illinois University (EIU) Vice President of Business Affairs Matt Bierman said. About 75 percent of EIU’s buildings haven’t been renovated since they were built in the 1970s and the university has at least $500 million of deferred maintenance.  

“We have lost market share in the suburban areas,” Bierman said. “Those schools, those K-12 schools have set a facilities expectation that is hard for us to meet when they travel for higher education.” 

The university leaders called on state lawmakers to give the universities power to oversee projects that cost less than $25 million in hopes of moving projects along faster rather than waiting on funds to be released by the Capital Development Board. 

The hearing comes as state lawmakers are expected to revamp how Illinois universities are funded. Lawmakers have proposed creating an evidence-based formula, similar to how K-12 schools are funded, that will help schools lacking the most funding be prioritized for new state dollars each year.  

“What we’re trying to do with the commission’s work as well as with the bill is to reshape real opportunity across our 12 public universities,” Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) said.  

A report released last year studying higher education funding in Illinois by the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding found troubling trends for many universities. A proposed funding model developed by the commission found CSU is funded at 70 percent of adequacy for their needs, EIU is funded at 61 percent, GSU is funded at 45 percent, and ISU is funded at 66 percent. On the other hand, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is funded at 92 percent of their needs.