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Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Not sure what the problem was that this law fixes. I suspect it just codifies that IL CC will need to focus a lot more on remedial course work for those ‘graduates’ of IL’s public HS’s that can’t read or do basic arithmetic/ math. Look for budget requests from CC for more remedial resources, since they have to try and do what IL public schools and the teachers unions refuse to do, i.e. basic learning standards.
The state’s universities are collapsing into irrelevancy. Enrollment has been declining at the regional universities for a decade, student quality has been dropping, costs have been increasing, interest is waning, competition is increasing and there are fewer students overall attending college. Most high school students – and professors – view the Illinois university system at the very bottom of the desirability ladder. Our universities struggle to attract students. Look at the data on the link below, even UIUC struggles to attract out of state students, and relies almost entirely on international students to make up the difference. Only 14 WI… Read more »
I have stated numerous times here at WP that none of my 3 kids ever darkened the doorway of a public school or college in IL. You sum up some of the obvious reasons why. My daughter was probably our best academic student out of prep school, with a 33 ACT. I remember she insisted on visiting Champaign for a college visit. I reluctantly supported her wish. We went there to the alumni center, which is a nice bldg, and were amazed that at least half of the group were asian peoples. Anyhow, certainly not a problem for us, just… Read more »
Interesting story. Your experience seems to comport with the nonsense we see elsewhere – the Math is White Supremacy Lady (Rochelle Gutierrez, from the University of Illinois); and it’s psychology department’s obsessive focus on race, even going as far as introducing a new way to treat patients using an anti-racist model. https://education.illinois.edu/about/news-events/news/article/2022/08/30/paper-train-future-psychologists-to-dismantle-racism-injustice-in-society A team of psychologists, led by scholars at the College of Education, proposes a new training model that would prepare all practitioners in their discipline to respond to the social ills of racial discrimination and other forms of repression. I’m sure other departments have this same nonsense but… Read more »
And last year’s freshman class at UIUC was 22.5% asian including int’l students while only 5% of the state’s high school students are asian. That’s how U of I achieves diversity – they classify int’l students as diverse while filling the slots with asian int’l students and rejecting white suburban students. At the same time, U of I struggles to attract domestic out-of-state students, with the overwhelming majority of domestic students being from Illinois. Compared this to Michigan – Ann Arbor, where 50% of students are from Michigan, 45% are domestic out-of-state and only 5% are international students. This of… Read more »
People we know who are UofI grads insisted their kids go there – Their oldest son got into pot and partying big time, and now has a problem with pot usage. I guess UIUC has a reputation of being a party school, in addition to over 10,000 students from asia.
And it’s the best and cheapest school a high achieving Illinois grad can attend. As much as I want my kid to leave IL too, I wouldn’t complain if he attended U of I. Would be much easier on the pocket book.
Most high achieving students go out of state – when you factor in all the costs and fees, UIUC is far, far from cheap – in fact it’s more than a lot of private colleges. Plus no real scholarships. All my kids got significant private scholarship $$$’s from their out of state college.
I guess if you want to minor in Mandarin, UIUC may be worth the cost.
U of I has a better reputation in China then Harvard. Additionally, the Chinese students pay full, out of state tuition rates and we attract some very intelligent students. The diversity admissions then drag down the remaining standards. Between those two groups, our children be damned.
I am very close with a Prof for UofI Medical School and he consistently complains that several of his students are not smart enough to become doctors, yet the administration tells him he must pass the students.
I took a trip to Carbondale for my wife’s Covid shot and was actually shocked at the obvious drop in student population was compared to my one year there in 1969-70. Assorted vacant student housing units including some that were actually boarded up. There was mention of removing the Triad dormitories, now rescinded, that were three high rise housing units. The visit was quite a shocker to me but thinking realistically who would want to go to school there? Edwardsville SIU seems to be doing ok but it is cheap, thanks in part to its book rental plan, and has… Read more »
At least the state admits that wiu, eiu, siu and niu are really just glorified community colleges that cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.