Illinois Board of Higher Education

Beyond degrees: Empowering Illinoisans through career-first education

By Josh Bandoch, Lauren Zuar
06/03/2025
Published June 3, 2025 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The best path to empowerment and success, especially for poor people, is work. Work allows us to prosper while providing dignity, upward mobility, the means to support ourselves and create value for others. It’s how we become thriving members of our community. Central to this process is our education...

Illinois shorts higher ed by nearly $530M compared to 15 years ago

By Patrick Andriesen
02/01/2024
Illinois’ institutions of higher education will get nearly $530 million less from lawmakers to run this year than they did in fiscal year 2009, adjusted for inflation. Coupled with rapidly rising pensions, students and their families can expect ever-higher tuition costs.

Pritzker price tag: Candidate’s spending promises require doubling state income tax

By Adam Schuster, Orphe Divounguy, Bryce Hill
10/15/2018
While J.B. Pritzker has not released a detailed tax plan of his own, reasonable cost estimates suggest the tax hike required to pay for the candidate’s spending promises would require doubling Illinois’ state income tax rate and cost the state an estimated 132,000 jobs and $31.3 billion in forgone GDP.

Moody’s downgrades 7 Illinois universities, 5 are junk

By Ted Dabrowski, John Klingner
06/13/2017
Illinois universities have hiked tuition and relied on state subsidies to pay for exorbitant administrative salaries — and now credit rating agencies are punishing them for that destructive behavior.

TAGS: budget, credit rating, CSU: Chicago State University, EIU: Eastern Illinois University, higher education, Illinois Board of Higher Education, Moody's Investor Service, NIU: Northeastern Illinois University, University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, WIU: Western Illinois University

Load More

Fighting poverty with employment: Chicago block clubs

Leaders of these organizations on the South and West sides connect residents to jobs and engage youth to build safer neighborhoods.

View Report

Report Archive

Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016