To the Editor:
Western Illinois University is one of the most poorly funded public universities in Illinois. According to Advance Illinois, WIU currently gets less than half the state funding it needs to serve its students. The University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, however, is funded at nearly 90% adequacy. This gap is no accident. It is the result of a funding system that has never been based on equity or student need, but rather on political momentum and flat percentage increases applied equally to the well-funded and the underfunded alike.
A system that treats unequal institutions as though they were equal is not neutral. Rather, it entrenches and deepens inequality with each passing year.
Senate Bill 13 and House Bill 1581, the Adequate and Equitable Public University Funding Act, would change this. Modeled on the Evidence-Based Funding formula that began transforming K-12 education in Illinois in 2017 (and that still awaits full funding), the equitable funding bill would direct new funding to the universities furthest from adequacy first. For WIU, that means a potential increase from $16,000 per student to $35,000, which would be a genuine investment in an institution with a distinguished history of serving the first-generation students, veterans, and rural communities that larger universities do not.
The cost is $135 million annually — less than one-quarter of one percent of a $56 billion state budget. The University of Illinois system has opposed the bill, citing its own budget priorities. But as WIU Trustee Kirk Dillard noted, a degree today is worth 85% more over a lifetime than one earned in 1979. Why wouldn't Illinois invest $135 million to keep that opportunity accessible?
For 23 years, regardless of the party holding the governor's office, state funding for higher education has declined. WIU has made traumatic cuts and survived. But survival is not the same as thriving.
When I arrived on campus in 2007, WIU had over 13,000 students. It has now fallen to around 5,300, with substantial economic ripple effects on Macomb and McDonough County. WIU is not merely an educational institution, but the engine of a regional economy, generating demand for housing, restaurants, retail, and services that the area could not otherwise sustain. Every student lost represents not just tuition revenue to the university, but spending power withdrawn from local businesses, landlords, and employers. The layoffs and non-renewals of around 120 faculty and staff positions in 2024 compounded this directly. These are professional salaries, spent locally, now removed from the Macomb economy permanently. This loss has also affected the Quad Cities. Adequate and equitable state funding for WIU is not just a higher education issue: It is an economic survival issue for our region.
Springfield must pass this bill now.
Merrill Cole, Professor of English and President, WIU Chapter, University Professionals of Illinois Macomb
