* This week Trustees at the University of Illinois will be considering a proposal that would bump tuition at its Champaign and Chicago campuses by 8 percent next school year:
The proposal to be taken up next week would push the costs for new undergraduates in Champaign above $20,000 for the first time. The plan would set tuition, fees, room and board at the flagship campus at $20,034. Students paid $18,550 last year.
New undergraduates at the Chicago campus would also see an 8 percent increase, to $18,670.
* All I can say is that I am thankful for the state’s tuition freeze. Four years ago my tuition was no where even close to that proposal. A recently released study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research found of the 95 percent of Chicago Public School students who planned to go on to post-secondary education in 2005, only 59 percent applied to a four-year college. Only 41 percent of students ultimately enrolled the fall after graduation.
Jenny Nagaoka, a co-author of the study and researcher at the consortium, had the following to say:
“There’s a huge gap between students accepted to school and those who actually enroll. The primary reason why is because they did not fill out their financial aid forms.”
* The study can be applied to almost any district, including those in suburban Chicago, where immigrants and their children made up 33 percent of the population in 2005.
The majority of those individuals are Latinos living in the Northwest and Western suburbs, and the study concluded that they fared the worst with 46 percent applying to four-year colleges, yet only 30 percent actually enrolling in the fall.
The study concluded that Chicago high schools must be more proactive in structuring the application process during junior and senior years, and commit to a fostering a better college bound environment:
“Tracking (financial aid form) completion is a significant improvement, but it won’t dramatically change outcomes unless schools work earlier to help families and students understand what financial aid is and how funding is available,” Nagaoka said.
* This task will undoubtedly become harder for these schools with ever increasing state tuitions. Discuss.