By Peter Medlin | Northern Public Radio Illinois
Published August 28, 2025

Northern Illinois University sophomore Michael Kocher shows his friend around campus during Welcome Week, posing for a picture in front of the "Huskie Pride" sculpture.

His friend just transferred from community college. Kocher says, if it wasn't for getting one of the state's Monetary Award Program (MAP) grants for lower-income college students, he would have taken the same path.

"Because then I could, at least, work my way through college," he said. "Because NIU is a little expensive, I mean, compared to Kishwaukee College, at least. But, yeah, MAP and FAFSA really was a big decision in coming here."

He's not alone. NIU enrollment administrator Sol Jensen says, for many students, MAP doesn't just decide university versus community college.

"If we did not have MAP grants, there are thousands of students that very likely would not be able to go to college," said Jensen.

The Illinois budget impasse began 10 years ago. At that time, Lawmakers significantly cut funding for MAP. But state investment has grown a lot since the budget crisis.

In fiscal year 2016, the state appropriated $170 million to MAP. In 2025, the state budget devoted over $700 million.

By Kate Armanini | Chicago Tribune
Originally Published: August 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM CDT
Updated:  August 11, 2025 at 12:57 PM CDT

Tyshawn Allison dreamed of leaving Chicago for a prestigious out-of-state university.
 
But for most of high school, that dream felt out of reach. The 19-year-old had no idea how he’d afford rising tuition costs — and he doubted his grades would be enough for a scholarship. Only a handful of his friends from his Belmont Cragin school made it to college. Many dropped out.
 
“There were times in high school where I felt like a failure,” said Allison.
 
It was his mom who first suggested Wilbur Wright College. Two years later, Allison holds an associate’s degree in accounting, and will transfer to a four-year university without any debt.

“I wanted to end the circle of stereotypes,” he said. “That’s really what made me want to push myself.”

Higher education remains the strongest pathway towards economic mobility. But students from low-income backgrounds and minority groups are still significantly less likely to pursue or complete a college degree, according to a July report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative, which studies the education-to-workforce pipeline.

By Peter Hancock
July 18, 2025

Article Summary
A new study shows there are barriers to upward mobility in Illinois, especially for women and people of color.

People who grow up in lower-income families tend to earn less as adults than those from wealthier families, even after earning similar degrees and going to work in similar fields.
Educational attainment and career choices are still the biggest factors that influence future earnings.
 
For generations, America has been thought of as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone who worked and studied hard could grow up to achieve any goal they set for themselves.
 
That idea has had especially strong roots in Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln,” where a young man born in a log cabin on America’s frontier rose from rail-splitter to self-taught lawyer and president of the United States.
 
But a new study suggests that the American dream is still more elusive for some people in Illinois than for others, and that the pathway up the economic ladder is not easily scaled.

By Peter Hancock
March 18, 2025

SPRINGFIELD — Enrollment at Illinois community colleges grew to more than 285,000 in the spring semester this year, an 8.9% increase over a year ago and the largest spring-to-spring enrollment increase since the Illinois Community College Board began collecting systemwide data in the late 1990s.

In a report released Tuesday, the ICCB said 40 of the state’s 45 community colleges reported enrollment growth this spring.

There was significant growth in several enrollment categories, including a nearly 20% increase in students enrolled in dual credit programs, which allow high school students to earn college credits. But there was an even greater increase, 23.4%, in students seeking general associate’s degree programs.

“With the largest spring-to-spring enrollment increase and the third straight year of growth, our community colleges have not only bounced back from the pandemic — they are now stronger than ever thanks to our historic investments in education,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — March 19, 2025 — A new study from Lumina Foundation and Gallup shows 90% of currently enrolled students believe their investment in college is worth it, even as the perceived value of associate and bachelor’s degrees dropped by five percentage points from 2023 to 2024.

Higher Education Seen as Worth the Investment Regardless of Degree-Holding Status

The majority of adults without a degree believe associate degrees (55%) and bachelor’s degrees (70%) are “extremely” or “very” valuable. Among those without a degree, more than seven in 10 say a two- or four-year degree has become more important (38%) to career success over the past 20 years or remained just as important (34%).

Most also believe a degree pays off quickly: 58% of current or prospective students say a college degree pays off within five years, and 86% believe it pays off within 10 years. This is true regardless of enrollment or degree status; even among those who have never enrolled in learning beyond high school, nearly six in 10 (58%) say a degree pays off within five years.

By Logan Bricker
February 13, 2025

College students who receive Monetary Awards Program grants are seeing an 8% cut in their spring semester assistance after a higher-than-expected number of eligible students enrolled in classes this school year. The cuts represent a $12 to $336, or 8%, reduction compared to students' previously estimated MAP grants, according to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which administers the grant program.

Lynne Baker, an ISAC spokeswoman said officials – utilizing past years' enrollment numbers – were expecting about 140,000 students to split the approximately $711 million pot for the 2024-25 school year. However, more applicants who were promised grants enrolled in classes. That forced ISAC to reallocate money to ensure everyone got most of the estimated amount.

"We have to base our estimates on how many students we think are actually going to go to school," said Baker. "Every year there's a good-sized percentage that doesn't go to school. This is happening in the spring before they've even accepted them. If we cut [applications] off in May based on that, then you'd have a whole bunch of students on a waiting list who would more than likely be able to get that money."

By Matthew Dembicki 
December 11, 2024

The long-expected drop in high school graduates — which colleges watch closely as it affects their enrollments — is coming soon, but it will be gradual rather than a “demographic cliff,” and it will impact racial/ethnic groups and regions differently, with some populations and states likely to see increases.
 
Those are among the findings of a comprehensive report on high school graduates from the Western Interstate Community for Higher Education (WICHE), which has released the data every four years since 1979.

The U.S. will reach its peak number of high school graduates next year (3.9 million) and then start to steadily decline, with projections indicating a -13% drop by 2041 (3.4 million graduates), the report says. But postsecondary institutions have some cushion to craft strategies to buffer expected resulting enrollment declines, according to WICHE.

By Génesis Santiago, Senior Government Relations Associate at ACCT.
December 2, 2024

On October 23, 2024, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in its Regular  Updates on Higher Education Enrollment an overall increase in enrollment from Fall 2023 to Fall 2024. What is significant is that this overall increase across all higher education sectors is a result of existing  students’ persistence and improved retention, not new freshmen. In other words, since Fall 2023, there has been a decline in freshmen enrollment, particularly in the 18- to 20-year-old age group. The good news for community colleges is that, unlike its other counterparts in the higher education space, public 2-year and Primarily Associate–Degree Granting Baccalaureate (PAB) institutions with a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients did see an increase in freshmen enrollment. This increase is especially seen among freshmen  enrolling as part-time students in public 2-year and PAB institutions.    

While enrollment shows an overall increase for all institution types from last year to this year, we must bear in mind that for the last decade college enrollment has seen a steady decline. Higher education leaders hope that 2024 marks a reverse in that trend, as the National Center for Education Statistics is projecting a  gradual increase in enrollment into 2031.