[Dr. Sivana]

NIU is based in Dekalb. The state wanted to put the school in Rockford, a larger city, but the city fathers and local business magnates were afraid the presence of a University would drive up the costs of the local labor pool. Rockford has consistently made the wrong decision for its economic well-being on a very consistent basis.

[Bernard]

NIU enrollment has been tanking for several years; it got up into the mid-20,000's range for a while, now it's 17.100 total, 15,500 undergraduate. few years ago, the school started offering zero-tuition to inner city Chicago students, in order to keep the drop in enrollment lower. Gotta keep all those professors busy.

Along with NIU, and to some extent because of the votes from the college, DeKalb also has a very large section-8 population. Between that and the cost of funding public pensions, there is little city money for things like fixing potholes and other services that residents used to expect when this was a small American city and not the dump it has become.

The good news, or silver lining, is that DeKalb is not as much of a dump as Rockford. Yet.

[EVO X]

Good news for Northern. The U of I system gets all the attention and the lesser universities are fighting for table scraps.