Some degree programs at Illinois State University will charge 15% more tuition than others in the next academic year, a change that’s aimed at offsetting the cost of delivering those programs to students.
ISU’s Board of Trustees voted 5-2 on Thursday to set differential tuition for undergraduate degree programs within the Mennonite College of Nursing, College of Business and the forthcoming College of Engineering. Cybersecurity and computer science programs also are included in the change.
Starting in the 2024-25 school year, credit hour rates for those programs will be $462 per hour, a $60 difference from the credit hour rate charged for other undergraduate programs.
“This is probably one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make as a trustee,” said Julie Jones, who voted in favor of the change. “I can’t tell you the amount of hours we have spent as trustees discussing this matter amongst our peers, amongst colleagues at other universities, students, parents, administrators. This has been our life for the last few months: Trying to make a decision. And it’s a tough one.”
Documentation provided ahead of Thursday’s special board meeting indicated ISU’s administration believed there could be “several negative consequences” if the university did not pivot to a differential tuition model found at other public universities across the state and country. Among them were fears that overall tuition would increase and faculty would leave or be difficult to hire in competitive departments.
“The additional resources provided through the implementation of a differential tuition rate for certain programs will allow the University the flexibility to retain current and attract new talented faculty while meeting market demands,” according to the documentation. “It also allows for enhanced student learning experiences through improvements to lab equipment, research facilities and the innovative technologies needed for these programs with greater operating costs.”
Scott Jenkins was one of the two trustees who voted against the resolution. Jenkins said he had five points of concern with the concept of differential tuition, ranging from equity issues to the “administrative complexity” of implementing it.
“I think that as we think about what Illinois State provides as a public good to the state, and as we start to differentiate that public and private good, we will further create an opportunity where people could perceive that, because they result in a higher private good, they are the programs that policymakers and others direct students to go into,” Jenkins said.
“I’m worried about, over time, the depreciation of the value — or the perceived value — of programs in the liberal arts … things that we know, over time, yield as high or higher economic value for the students who graduate from the program.”
Ash Ebikhumi, the only student on ISU’s governing board, expressed confidence in the administration’s proposal and voted in favor of the resolution, though he said he had “gone back and forth on this many times.”
“I think differential tuition does, to a certain extent, make college unaffordable for a lot of students,” he said. “But I think that our administration, maybe, can over the next several years, come up with different, creative ways to come up with different revenue streams, as well as ideas that take the burden off our students.”
ISU’s College of Engineering, one of the programs set to adopt differential tuition, won’t start enrolling students until the 2025-2026 academic year. Trustee Robert Navarro voted against the resolution, saying the College of Engineering’s touted focus on equity and diversity within its student body appeared at odds with the higher tuition rate now required to be a part of it.
“I’m very concerned that when we approved the College of Engineering, this was not on the table,” Navarro said. “We said we were going to make a very conscious effort to go out and recruit underrepresented students into that program, and I just don’t think that differential tuition will do that.”
Multiple universities across Illinois already have differential tuition policies in place, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and others within the UI system, Southern Illinois University and Northeastern Illinois University. Impacted programs, like the ones identified at ISU, are typically those that involve more equipment and graduate students into higher-earning jobs.
‘Codify the principles used to justify this proposal’
Prior to taking the vote on differential tuition, ISU’s trustees had to first vote on a change to their governing documents that would allow it to set differential tuition in some cases. Previous language had only allowed the board to set differential tuition related to residency [in-state versus out-of-state], graduate and undergraduate, and to comply with state law that requires tuition rates remain consistent for students for four consecutive academic years.
That resolution passed 6-1, with Navarro being the sole vote against altering the board's governing documents in this manner.
Martha Horst, chair of ISU’s Academic Senate and a professor of music composition within the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, encouraged the board to consider adding “a future resolution detailing guidelines and principles on how to evaluate proposed differential tuition increases.”
The only person to give public comment at the meeting, Horst said she was in favor of the proposed resolution that would allow the board to set differential tuition, but believed it would benefit from additional language to “codify the four factors it will use … to assess whether or not differential tuition should be charged for a program.”
“The amended proposal states that universities that use a differential tuition model base tuition costs on factors such as student field of study, the market value of the degree, student demand for the major in cost of instruction,” Horst said. “Although there is no indication that the Board of Trustees of Illinois State University will charge differential tuition for programs based solely on the high cost of instruction, there is precedent and other public institutions for doing so.”
Horst said the worry stemmed from observing other universities charge higher tuition for programs that involve high instruction costs, but typically don’t graduate students into high-earning careers.
“My concern is that the stripped-down statement contained in (the resolution) allows for majors such as music, dance or art to be charged differential tuition in the future,” Horst said. “The statement… says nothing about how these proposals will be assessed, or says nothing about the criteria used to make a fair assessment.”
Horst added while the current slate of board members may have no intention of ever setting differential tuition for such programs, future trustees could — hence the desire to see the guiding factors for setting differential tuition written into policy.
“We may have the best of intentions, but the devil is in the details, as people say. As someone who looks at policy language written 20 years ago, almost every single day, I know that at the end of the day, all that remains is the actual text passed by the body,” she said.
Also on Thursday, the board:
- Approved up to $17 million in updates to fire separation barriers in Watterson Towers student housing. Some work will begin in the spring and continue into the summer, with an estimated finish date after the summer of 2025.
- Approved spending an additional $1.7 million on updates to Williams Hall. Parts of the building that are currently not habitable will be revamped for future use, though what, exactly, it will house is not yet determined.
Search for permanent ISU president narrowed
ISU's 29-member search committee met Thursday morning to continue its work of finding a permanent president after nearly a year of interim leadership.
The pool of presidential hopefuls has been narrowed to 11 people, down from 41 sourced by Atlanta-based firm Parker Executive Search.
Applications for the position closed on Jan. 10 and candidate information was shared with the committee on Jan. 15. Most of Thursday's meeting was held in closed session.
Chair Kathy Bohn said the committee's next steps include finalizing interview questions and conducting interviews remotely on Feb. 5 and 6.
The current timeline has the committee slated to invite finalists to campus in mid and late February.
A tentative date of March 5 has also been set for the committee to bring a recommendation to the full Board of Trustees.
