Prospective college-bound Illinois students attending out-of-state institutions will no longer be eligible for the Midwest Student Exchange Program, a tuition reciprocity agreement, according to the state's board of higher education.
A spokeswoman for the Illinois Board of Higher Education said in a statement that no Illinois colleges or universities “currently participate” in the Midwest Student Exchange Program, making the state an “inactive member.” McKendree University in Lebanon was the latest Illinois institution to withdraw from the program. The state may rejoin if an Illinois institution decides to join, according to the spokeswoman.
Illinois students already attending college out of state who benefit from the program, including students who plan to start college in the 2021-22 academic year, will be grandfathered in.
The exchange program offers students from Midwestern states tuition discounts at participating universities. While public colleges and universities typically charge a premium to out-of-state students, those in the program agree to charge eligible students no more than 150 percent of the school's in-state tuition for specific programs, and private colleges offer a 10 percent tuition discount, according to the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, which oversees the program. Students typically save $500 to $5,000 a year, the compact said.
Overall, Illinois students saved nearly $44 million in tuition in 2019-20 — the highest savings of any participating state, according to 2020 report from the compact.
In recent years, the program appears to have benefited individual students more than Illinois institutions, which have mostly opted out.
In the 2017-18 school year, more than 7,600 Illinois students used the program to receive tuition discounts at out-of-state schools, while no out-of-state students used it to attend Illinois schools, according to the most recent numbers available from compact.
Daina Jauntirans, whose daughter is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as part of the Midwest exchange student program, said the reciprocity program saved her family about $6,000 to $7,000 a year in tuition. Jauntirans, who lives in Evanston, said she did not receive notification that Illinois was no longer part of the program from her daughter's school or the state, but instead learned about it on Facebook message boards.
“A lot of people have expressed frustration because it's such a great opportunity for students who might fall into an intermediate income bracket,” he said. “It's a chance to go to other states and experience that and live somewhere else at a relatively affordable cost, considering the high cost of education now.
“It's a shame he's leaving.”
Enrollment at Illinois institutions of higher education has been steadily declining in recent years. According to a 2020 report from the Illinois Board of Higher Education, public schools saw a 1 percent drop in fall undergraduate enrollment between 2019 and 2020. Community colleges lost 12.4 percent of their enrollment in that period, and private nonprofit schools saw a 1, 4%.
A growing number of Illinois public high school graduates have enrolled in out-of-state colleges and universities over the past two decades, according to a 2019 report by the Council on Higher Education.
David Tretter, president of the Illinois Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said Illinois has historically been a major exporter of students. He said this “one-sided dynamic” may be why few Illinois schools have participated in the exchange.
“I think if institutions thought (the program) was a useful tool for attracting students, they would probably use it,” he said.
Tretter said some Illinois schools have positioned their own tuition reciprocity programs to better meet their need to bring students into the state, rather than encouraging them to leave for out-of-state institutions. For example, Western Illinois University has provided tuition to all domestic undergraduate and graduate students since 2016, according to university spokeswoman Darcie Shinberger.
“The market is passing (regional reciprocity programs) based on the competitive nature of higher education,” Tretter said. “The exchange is not a bad idea … but the market has moved on from it.”
The pact consists of 12 states and the exchange program is voluntary. More than 50 colleges in Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin are participating.
Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and South Dakota are “inactive,” according to the compact's website. Michigan announced starting in the 2019-20 academic year that it will no longer participate in the program, according to the state's office of higher education.
“It's really too bad because it's as much for students in Illinois as it is for students in other states,” Jauntirans said. “I think it's short-sighted not to treat it as regional. I understand they want to keep students in Illinois and donors in Illinois.”
mprosser@chicagotribune.com
