Semi OT: Illinois Legislator wants law to force 2nd Illinois school in The Big10

New Jersey must have passed a law forcing the Big Ten to accept them.

I guess he doesn't think that well of UI-Chicago. 

 

I'm not sure if this is 100% relevant but Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, and Nebraska seem to be doing fine with one B1G public school.

The only two options in this harebrained scheme are NIU and UIC. And unless you dump about a gazillion dollars into each one, there's no way you get a B1G-level university out of either one, sorry to say.

Honestly, if we started a thread every time a state legislator spouted off about a non-starter pet project involving colleges and universities, we'd need to spin off a new board. That's all this is.

He is a state senator from Naperville, and he never went to Illinois either.  He graduated from Loyola University and went to the John Marshall Law School.  Is it sour grapes or just ignorance of who is in the Big Ten?

Rather than have a prestigious institution, we wants to dumb it down.  Kind of like outlawing dodge ball because there is only one winner.  Everyone gets a tropy. Everyone gets into an Illinois Big Ten school.

I despise politicians for many reasons.

Just add this to the list.

I believe MSU has only one more big ten championship than University of Chicago. They were tied heading into last season. They Haven't played football since 1939 too.

As am Illinois senior going to Iowa next year, can confirm, but it's more so the fact that in state prices at good Illinois schools are identical to out of state at others.

Kids from Illinois going  to Michigan or MSU whereever instead of Uof I isn't a problem for the State of Illinois

All of the graduates from Michigan or MSU moving to Chicago after graduation is a problem for the State of Michigan.

Illinois should have it so bad.

Dammit Ron!

Full disclosure: I know both state senators in the article. Neither one of them are stupid, although I wouldn't put it past either one of them doing something just to grab headlines. But both are generally regarded as ethical and reasonably smart legislators. Connelly doesn't have sour grapes from his own schooling, it's his experience with his own kids. They are pretty bright. Students at Notre Dame and I think his one kid is now going to law school at Wash U in St. Louis, which is a pretty solid law school. I think both senators make an OK point, although I don't know that making another public school a "Big Ten" school would necessarily solve the problem. One aspect is population and the number of university seats available on a per capita basis for in state kids at in state tuition level of a solid college or university. If public dollars are too low, then the public schools boost the percentage from out of stare students paying out of state tuition. Plus I believe the rankings partially prioritize geographic diversity and the prestige of a university goes up with a larger geographic alumni base. So on one hand, a solid Illinois student may have a harder time getting into U of I, but perhaps on the flip side they have an easier time getting into Purdue or Michigan, but they'd have to pay through the nose for the privilege. And vice versa for a solid Indiana or Michigan student getting into Illinois. I always thought it was the other way around--that the vast majority of public schools pulled from in state kids and that because the out of state seats were limited, it was harder to get accepted to a state school as an out of state student. But my understanding is that over the past 10-15 years that dynamic has shifted dramatically. The feasibility study would cost a relatively small amount. It'd be interesting to see what would cost less---beefing up NIU or SIU or Illinois State, or using that same money to more fully endow the current schools to the point that the in state student ratio flips back to what the original intent of the public school charters were. But ultimately what I don't get is do they think the demand is too high from a huge volume of otherwise qualified in state kids to the point that tuition is too high? Or is it that the schools are accepting too many non resident students and artificially lowering the number of spots available for residents? Because if the problem is the second problem, then I don't see why they don't just pass a law increasing the percentage of spots the schools have to give to in state kids, and then making up any lost monies with additional state subsidy. Yes, Illinois is broke and a fiscal basket case right now. But if they can't afford to boost subsidies to the current in state big schools, then how on earth could they pump in enough resources to boost a directional school into a Big a Ten caliber of program?

what other school in Illinois could even be considered as a B1G school? Seriously... I can't think of any that would be a remotely good fit.

Unless things have changed radically since I was applying to colleges (and that is possible) a 34 on the ACT should get you into pretty much any school that takes ACT scores, as long as you have good grades as well.  I believe 34 is the school record at my high school.

I had a 33 on the ACT back when I took it (late 80's).  I have no idea how that maps to today.  My only  problem was that a lot of the elite schools back then only took SAT scores, and my SAT was rather mediocre for Ivy League consideration because I was awful at all that vocabulary stuff in the verbal section.  Any school that took ACT scores (like Michigan) accepted me in about the time it took for the application to get mailed there and back. 

Luckily I really only wanted to go to Michigan anyway because of the cost.  But I have a really REALLY hard time believing the University of Illinois is turning down ANY in-state kids with 34 ACT scores that have good grades unless 34 means something radically different now.

Lol! It's easy to be a comedian when we have our whole government working for us.

I guess he isn't too good at geography. Isn't Northwestern Chicago's Big Ten school?

I know he means public. But this is stupid regardless.

Kids with a 34 are rejected by Illinois? Lol wut. I guess it takes a 43 to get into the elites like Harvard nowadays.

Wait, is Northwestern not a Big 10 school?  Pretty sure they're in Chicago too.

OK. For the Nth time in this thread: Yes, Northwestern is a Big Ten School. Yes, it has very solid academics. Yes, University of Chicago has solid academics, used to be a Big Ten school back in the day, but no longer is. But what the legislators are getting at is having another solid academic school of at least Big Ten caliber that is STATE supported and thus has significantly cheaper tuition for the residents of Illinois. Both Northwestern and UofC are private and outrageously expensive. University of Illinois in state tuition & room/board for 2013-2014 school year: ~$30,000. Northwestern tuition & room/board for 2013-2014 school year: ~$57,000. Illinois has plenty of state supported schools but most of them have mediocre academics at best. UIC or NIU or SIU or ISU are fine if you just want to check the box and get a basic college degree. But if you're truly an academic gunner and are looking for a more prestigious academic experience or want a school with regional or national appeal, then there's only one choice in Illinois that doesn't include insane tuition levels--the University of Illinois. And apparently what people are saying is that for prestige and budgetary reasons, U of I is starting to prioritize out of state students rather than otherwise well qualified in state kids. And considering that Illinois is one of the biggest states in the union, the legislators are asking to do a minor feasibility study to see if it makes sense to try and boost that to two rather than just one school. The other thing that was going on awhile back was legislators were clouting their kids and politically connected people's kids into U of I over and above unconnected qualified kids. These two were not involved, as they are relatively newer legislators and actually voted to ban legislator scholarships that Illinois legislators got to "award" (usually to political cronies kids) on an annual basis. You can disagree with their solution all you want. I myself think there's merit looking at the problem but I'm not convinced a "second Big Ten school" would solve it or be cost effective. But the underlying problem does in fact exist: there are not enough good quality & lower tuition schools in Illinois to satisfy the needs of, say, the top 10-20% of kids coming out of the Chicagoland public, private, and catholic schools. It's forcing otherwise sharp enough kids to either slum it at the directional schools or pay through the nose to go to an out of state public school or in state private school.

I should note that those getting rejected with those scores are almost certainly applying to Illinois' engineering or business schools, which are both some of the best in the country. You can get into their equivalent of LSA with a lower score in all likelihood.  There was something like a 10 point difference in ACT median between engineering and the CAS back when I graduated high school some 20 years ago.  I'm sure competition for spots in engineering and business has only gotten more difficult.

push legislation to force Northwestern to become a public school?

As a resident of Chicago, I can honestly state that the State of Illinois does not have another public school worthy of inclusion in the Big 10.  Just becase a directional school joins the conference doesn't mean kids w/ 34 ACT scores are going to want to go there.  If they're getting high scores, they're not going to settle for Southern Illinois.

schools I would like to have attended they are 11th just ahead of Staee

Just as additional tuition/room/board FYI from the eyes of an Illinois resident:

 

U of Illinois in-state:  ~$30K per year

Northwestern (private):  ~$57K per year

NIU In-State: ~$14K per year

University of Iowa out-of-state: ~$40K per year

University of Wisconsin out of state:  ~$42K per year

University of Michigan out of state:  ~$54K per year

 

Good point about the U of I engineering school, etc.  My understanding is that they are on an academic notch or two above the general undergrad.  My understanding of U of I undergrad generally is they are somewhere in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten in terms of academic rigor, so the initial reports of the 34 ACT kid not getting in did strike me as odd.

The value proposition might be valid RE: NIU tuition, etc. but looking at other in-state tution rates for Big Ten schools, U of I is still more expensive than most other Big Ten in-state tuition prices, and let's face it, some families don't feel that saving the $60K they save in tuition savings over 4 years isn't worth the potential step-down in academic quality that the student might receive at a bigger school with access to more research labs, graduate facilities, etc.

Also good points about the inability to simply "will" another Big Ten caliber school into existence simply by throwing money at it.  First, Illinois is broke.  Second, I don't know that it would happen anyway.  It's a bit of a chicken/egg issue.  You need a nice campus, hopefully a nice university town, OK sports, then throw a bunch of money at quality professors, perhaps dangle out a bunch of academic cholarships to induce kids who might otherwise go to Illinois or Northwestern to instead go to this new & improved school to jump start the new & improved school's academic reputation over a period of 10-20 years.  Perhaps not as big of a tuition drop off between what Illinois and NIU is now, but something that makes the smart kid (or almost smart-enough kid's) decision easier to not have to choose between NIU in it's present form versus an out of state Iowa or Wisconsin, etc.