Defunding public higher education
The American Federation of Teachers examines the result of cuts to higher education in Illinois (41% since FY 2000): layoffs, program elimination, increased tuition, lower enrollments.
Budget!
For the first time in more than two years, Illinois has a budget.
Illinois, Illinois, Illinois
“This impasse has been very cleverly designed to minimize the immediate obvious impact on middle-class families that don’t have a need for state-funded social services.”
An Obama thought
I’m not Barack Obama. And neither, in some ways, is he.
Deep story, deep resentment
It’s still remarkable to me that any resident of a town that depends upon a public university for its economic well-being would not be troubled to see that university in decline. It’s like cheering as your own house burns.
Stranded by the State
A video series examining the effects of Illinois’s budget crisis on the state’s people.
Other states
In The New York Times , a state-by-state analysis of how many students leave their home states to attend public universities elsewhere.
About last night
Our trip to hear our state representative speak on funding for our university turned out to be an interesting waste of time.
Creative accounting
Our representative’s explanation of funding for education.
“Illinois, Illinois”
The legislature works out a short-term fix at the last minute.
Illinois budget crisis on The Daily Show
Last night The Daily Show had a six-minute story about the Illinois budget crisis. Spoiler alert: there is no happy ending.
Destruction, degree by degree
Getting rid of philosophy, etc. The present (manufactured) budget crisis in Illinois offers an easy excuse for “flexibility,” really another name for destruction.
Woe is Illinois
Our “pro-business” governor seems incapable of understanding that shutting down social-service agencies, decimating public higher education, and failing to pay the state’s bills do little to foster economic growth or human well-being.
Illinois, summer and beyond
Some money is better than no money, but today’s vote does nothing to provide a secure future for public higher education in Illinois, no more than having three months’ rent on hand would provide a secure future for a tenant.
Bruce Rauner: “an epic F”
The Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn gives Illinois’s governor Bruce Rauner “an epic F” at midterm.
The Illinois higher-ed crisis makes it into The New York Times
It is good to see the Times paying attention. But I don’t know of anyone in Illinois who sees the current budget crisis as a matter of “politics as usual.”
Marketplace on Illinois
A helpful introduction to the public higher education crisis in Illinois.
Orange Crate Art: Illinois primaries
It appears that Illinois voters don’t think much of Bruce Rauner.
Back to earth
The mantra of “flexibility” now in play in Wisconsin would seem to be a strategy to diminish or eliminate whole fields of academic endeavor: African-American studies, art history, classical studies, cultural studies, foreign languages, literature, philosophy, queer studies, women’s studies, whatever might be deemed impractical, unprofitable, unacceptable.
“Here’s what it’s like to live in the shadow of a Big Ten school”
What makes the news: a new coach.
Recently updated
Chicago State sends out layoff notices.
Sanders at Chicago State
Bernie Sanders, speaking at Chicago State University last night: “Why is anybody in the world talking about shutting down colleges?” And: “Where are our priorities?”
Illinois’s higher-ed crisis on the evening news
NBC Nightly News has taken notice.
Three Rauner thoughts
In a prepared text of 4,229 words, Rauner’s first direct reference to the lack of a budget appeared with only 236 words to go,
Recently updated
A sad indication of what now counts as good news in Illinois.
“Horrible”
The present catastrophe-in-the-making threatens to damage public higher education in Illinois for years to come.
Illinois’s higher-ed crisis
Bruce Rauner may not be the worst governor in the United States right now — that honor must go to Michigan’s Rick Snyder. But Rauner is certainly in the running.
A petition to protect higher education in Illinois
The situation for public universities and community colleges is growing worse and worse.