SPRINGFIELD — University students and faculty urged the Illinois Board of Higher Education to press Gov. JB Pritzker to release more than $29 million in funding for state colleges and universities that state lawmakers approved this year but the Pritzker administration is holding back.
But the governor’s office said in an email to Capitol News Illinois that it does not intend to release the state-approved funding until it sees “stability” on federal education policy coming from Washington.
“(President) Trump’s budget bill and reckless tariffs have wreaked havoc on state revenues nationwide, making it essential to double down on fiscal discipline,” a spokesman in the governor’s office said.
Advocates for releasing the funds spoke Wednesday during the public comment portion of an IBHE business meeting, held on the campus of Elgin Community College, in Kane County. They included faculty members from nearby universities who are members of University Professionals of Illinois, a collective bargaining unit within the Illinois Federation of Teachers that represents about 3,000 employees across eight public university campuses in the state.
In addition to calling for release of the $29 million, advocates also called on the IBHE board to endorse legislation that would overhaul funding of the state’s higher education system, putting it on a needs-based formula similar to the Evidence-Based Funding formula used for grades K-12 education.
“Years of underfunding by the state have forced most Illinois public universities to increase tuition, cut programs and reduce staff,” said UPI vice president Keith Nyquist, a business instructor at Northern Illinois University. “We have to look no further and what’s been going on at Western (Illinois University) and most recently at Eastern Illinois (University), where dozens and dozens of staff and faculty have had their positions terminated. And they’re on their way out because of the lack of funding.”
MONEY HELD BACK
In his budget proposal to the General Assembly in February, Pritzker proposed a 3% increase in higher education funding. But the $55.3 billion budget bill that lawmakers approved in May contained only a 1% increase, with an additional 2% — or $29.5 million — that could be distributed only “after the purpose and amounts have been approved in writing by the Governor.”
Democratic leaders in the General Assembly said at the time the money was intended to be used if there were significant cuts in federal higher education spending.
But in its statement this week, the governor’s office said it was always Pritzker’s intent to hold the money back as a cushion against uncertainties caused by the Trump administration.
“When the budget was approved by the legislature and signed, the Governor was clear that a 2% reserve would remain in place until we saw stability on education from Washington, which has yet to materialize,” the statement read.
In addition to holding back the higher education funding, Pritzker issued an executive order in September directing executive branch agencies to make plans to hold back as much as 4% of their budgets this year. The IBHE and Illinois Community College Board were not subject to that order.
Kimberly Britt, a junior psychology major at Chicago State University, said that for her as well as many students and teachers at campuses across the state, the issue was not about national politics.
“The 2% being withheld might seem small on paper, but its impact is immense,” she said. “It determines whether a student can stay enrolled, whether a professor can continue teaching full time, and whether Chicago State can continue being the beacon of opportunity it has been for generations.”
NEW FUNDING FORMULA
In addition to calling for release of the funds, several of the advocates who spoke Wednesday called for IBHE to openly support overhauling the way higher education funding is allocated among the state’s public universities.
Of the $29.5 million that Pritzker is holding in reserve, the largest portion, $12.9 million, is earmarked for the University of Illinois system, which includes campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield.
The rest would be divided among the state’s eight other public university systems, the Illinois Community College Board and City Colleges of Chicago.
That distribution formula would change dramatically under legislation that was introduced earlier this year but which did not pass out of a key legislative committee, largely due to opposition from U of I.
That legislation, Senate Bill 13 and House Bill 1581, known as the Adequate and Equitable Public University Funding Act, would establish a new formula that would set an adequacy target for each university and then direct the bulk of any new funding approved by the General Assembly — the proposal calls for $1.7 billion over 10-15 years — to those institutions furthest away from their targets.
Under that formula, Western Illinois University would be first in line for any new funds because it is currently funded at only 46% of adequacy. U of I’s Urbana-Champaign campus, which is currently funded at 89% of adequacy, would be last in line.
“The board’s silence on the legislation aimed at addressing higher ed’s desperate and immediate need for adequate and equitable funding is deafening,” said Christopher Merchant, an associate psychology professor at Northeastern Illinois University and a UPI member.
“As more and more political leaders abandon colleges and universities out of political convenience or malice or both, this board’s absence of support gets thrown into more and more stark relief,” Merchant said. “How do we secure a pathway to the future for our students if nobody is willing to fight the fights that matter on their behalf?”
The advocacy group Advance Illinois, which was a strong proponent of the proposed new funding formula, has said it intends to continue pushing for the legislation in the 2026 session.