Illinois Colleges Besieged by Cuts as Budget Fight Trickles Down
- Six-month plan doesn’t make up for nearly a year without aid
- Several schools have bonds downgraded; students leaving state
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For Illinois’s colleges and universities, the end of a record-long political fight over the budget isn’t bringing the financial consequences to a close.
Southern Illinois University, with about 17,000 students, is eliminating a quarter of its graduate teaching assistant jobs when classes resume next month and is letting 50 faculty positions go unfilled at its main campus. At Chicago State University, enrollment is projected to tumble after the lack of state funds pushed it to the brink of closing this year. And just as Governor Bruce Rauner enacted a six-month spending plan last month, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded more than $600 million of bonds sold by six public universities because of the lingering uncertainty.