Students: Truth in Tuition program is working in Illinois

Saturday, September 1, 2007 4:13 PM CDT

SPRINGFIELD — Kelly Lambert faced a choice many high school seniors and their parents have to make.

Should she take two years of classes at a community college, where tuition is less costly than at a four-year university?

Or Should she jump straight from her home in Joliet to Illinois State University in Normal?

Lambert and her parents decided they wanted to save money.

So she went to straight to ISU.

The reason: the Truth in Tuition program.

The law, approved in 2003, freezes the tuition rate of an incoming freshman at a public university for the four years they expect to be in an undergraduate program. That way, the student and family won’t face any shocking tuition increases during their tenure at school, the state argues.

Several years later, many students say the program has worked.

And university administrators say, to varying degrees, that the idea is creating the planning challenges they thought it would. They have to raise tuition at a higher rate each year because they can only get new money from the incoming class, not the rest of the student body.

For Lambert, now a junior, she could have saved money initially in a community college.

“But then I would be paying more right now as a junior,” she said. So anticipating future cost increases, she locked in her rate as a freshman and began school in Normal.

“I think it attracts people to come as freshmen,” she said.

Droves of college students returned to Illinois campuses in the past two weeks. This year’s seniors — assuming they’re on an increasingly tough four-year track to graduate — will be the first class to leave after having their tuition locked in for all four years.

“It could have been a bad situation if I had to deal with increases,” said Jarvis Purnell, a senior at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. “I know that what the freshmen are paying now is significantly higher than what I was paying as a freshman.”

Many students agree the Truth in Tuition’s intent to help avoid the surprise of year-to-year increases is working, even though it usually doesn’t curb higher student fees or housing costs.

It sounded like such a great idea that only one of 177 lawmakers in the state General Assembly voted against it.

And four years later, state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, said he hasn’t changed his mind about what he called a “feel-good” policy.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he said.

Dillard said he thinks more modest tuition increases every year might be a better plan than one steep increase before freshmen begin school.

“It costs parents more, not less, in the first couple years of college,” he said.

Others voiced concerns that the locks on tuition tie the hands of university administrators, who can only get new money from the freshmen.

Budget directors report that, so far, the situation has been challenging, but not impossible.

“So far it’s OK,” said Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs at Eastern Illinois University. “It will be more complicated as the years go on because we’ll have more students at different levels (of tuition).”

A problem could come if a major cost appears suddenly that the school can’t accommodate in a hurry.

“It gives us no way to respond if we see a special need that surfaces,” said NIU Executive Vice President Eddie Williams.

For example, said Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville budget director Bill Winter, the state minimum wage increase forced schools to start paying many of their workers more.

“It’s difficult to foresee that is going to happen,” he said.

Williams and Winter agree the challenge of Truth in Tuition isn’t necessarily the program itself. Instead, it’s worse when both of universities’ main sources of money — tuition and state support — are tied up at the same time.

If universities were getting significant budget boosts from the state, it would be no big deal to lock in tuition rates.

But with this year’s state budget offering state schools a 2 percent increase in support, freshmen students likely can expect to be paying with tuition increases in the 10-percent range.

“It has therefore fallen on tuition to a great extent,” Williams said.

Lisa Bartelt and Carrie Frillman contributed to this report.