By: Diane Benjamin
The first story was published by WGLT on May 15, 2026. Quote: ISU student deposits are down 8% compared to last year. Of course they are jumping throw a lot of hoops, including paying students to attend (scholarships) to entice students.
https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2026-05-15/isu-student-deposits-drop-as-enrollment-cliff-arrives
Obviously the birth rate is down which means fewer high school students graduating to recruit. Common sense says cut the institution to the size needed for the job, but progressives never use common sense.
Story number 2 was written June 2, 2026, mere weeks after the first story. ISU didn’t get what they requested from the State in the largest budget ever passed in Springfield.
ISU got an increase, just not what they wanted. Quote: The state is giving ISU $83 million for Fiscal Year 2027, a near $2.5 million increase over what it received last year, but far short of the $20 million increase the university asked for.
Evidently WGLT didn’t notice the irony of these 2 stories.
Common Sense anyone?
Progressive ideology doesn’t allow for cuts. “Progress” to some never stated goal can’t be made without taking more of your money. Budget cuts are tragic. Remember when DOGE was catastrophic? Cutting waste, fraud, and abuse isn’t a good thing? Aligning programs to the needed size is never allowed either.
See Unit 5. See District 87. Fewer kids to educate means bigger and bigger budgets. YOUR money. Progressives are in both political parties, it isn’t partisan. Candidates who call themselves “progressive” will promise to gift you what they think you want – they forget to say you need to pay more for the gifts.
What it really is to your wallet:
This isn’t the correct way to look at this. ISU has been underfunded for decades by a 50 year old model. On a per student basis, ISU receives the least money, while other campuses in the state receive much more per student. ISU has been begging the state to change its model far a long time, but they don’t. Last year was the first year that ISU was running in the red because inflation had caught up with them, the faculty unionized, and their operating budget model failed. This lead to hiring a VP to rein in spending and institute a new budget model that is radically changing the way the university operates.
Also, we’ll likely end up just a couple hundred less than last year once the semester starts. Honestly, that’s not a bad thing. We had too many students last year, more than we could handle.
We’ll be fine, the new budget will end up changing things for the better. Less wasteful spending. Faculty are going to bitch and moan about it, but it’s for the better economic health of the university.
ISU wastes money? 😂
The public school system has created its own demise. What a tragedy. So now we have to dig deeper, and send our children to private schools (which are not by any means uninfected by the left) to shield them from the insanity of the DemonRats. And public universities in this state, and many others, have become liberal hellholes. So we have to find private Christian conservative colleges for our kids to attend. I wish there was a way to reclaim OUR state. But when you lose 1 million residents in 4 years, many of whom are Conservatives, it appears to be a lost cause, unless you can remove Cook County from downstate Illinois. JK
So did ISU cut staff as a result of being in the red? I am guessing not! Having spent over 30 years working for a private corporation I was at risk of losing my job more than once because of revenue shortfalls but because of my work ethic and performance I kept my position but others were not so fortunate.
The term IRIF involuntary reduction in force, and VRIF voluntary reduction in force were used to manage the health of the company. It appears that in the public sector employees are guaranteed a job for life regardless of performance and if their is a revenue shortfall just raise taxes or in the case of ISU just hire someone at probably $200,000.00 a year to manage the budget without letting people go.
No one likes to see anyone lose their job but at the same time no one likes to lose their house or home comforts because they are being taxed to death.
Until government is managed like the private sector we all are going to continue to suffer.