From ROCK RIVER TIMES:
Excerpt:
73 percent of the class of 2017 is from inside the state. The U of I long has had a goal to have three-quarters of its students come from Illinois high schools.
A decade ago, Illinois students made up 90 percent of the university’s classes.
The U of I’s admissions director, Stacey Kostell, told the Tribune that the lower in-state numbers were “not intentional.”
But as the school sees fewer local students, foreign-born and out-of-state students have flocked to the school.
Nearly 16 percent of the University of Illinois’ freshman class is from China.
“While it is good to have a good cross-section in our universities … we still need to be concerned about the average Illinoisan being able to afford the U of I,” state Rep. Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, said.
It costs an Illinois student about $35,000 each year for tuition, room and board, fees and books at the U of I.
The university charges foreign students $52,000 for the same tuition, room and board, books and fees.
And that — the $17,000 difference — is incentive to accept more foreign students.
In Maine, tution and fees only pay 39% of the costs. So what are they doing, they are chasing after international students, paying a company to recruit students to come to school in Maine. The company gets paid 80% of first years tution and 20% of the other 3 years if they stay.
You will probably find your state school is queitly doing the same.
The University system also paid $363,000 for a former president of one of its campuses to produce a report on how to get more international students to come to Maine schools. This was at the same time they had already engaged a compay to do just that. I don’t think anyone ever read the report.
When I went to state u. thirty years ago, tuition was about a thousand dollars a year. The tenured associate professors were making $25000. There’s part of the difference.