University funding overhaul bill advances in House despite U of I
opposition
[March 27, 2026]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD — A bill that would overhaul the way Illinois funds its
public universities advanced out of a House committee Thursday and could
face a vote by the full House soon, despite continued opposition from
the University of Illinois System, the state’s flagship institution.
House Bill 1581, titled the “Adequate and Equitable Public University
Funding Act,” would establish a needs-based formula for distributing new
funding for universities similar to the Evidence-Based Funding mechanism
that has been sued for K-12 school funding since 2018.
It calls for increasing university funding in Illinois by about $135
million each year over the next 15 years. That new funding would be
distributed under a formula that sets an adequacy target for each
institution and gives priority for new funding to those institutions
furthest away from their target.
Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, the bill’s lead House sponsor, said funding
for the plan would be subject to legislative appropriations each year
while HB 1581 merely establishes a policy under which the new money
would be distributed.
“The purpose of this is to establish a funding formula that gives us a
baseline that will allow us to build an adequate system for the future,”
she told the committee. “This process looks at real consequences, real
students, real institutions, some of which are so far from adequacy at
40% to 43% funded from the state.”
The proposal came from a commission lawmakers established in 2021 to
develop a new funding system for state universities, some of which were
nearly decimated financially by the two-year budget impasse that ran
from 2015 to 2017 during former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration.
Public universities generally have three main sources of revenue for
their day-to-day operations: state funding; student tuition and fees,
and federal funding. Many also have sizeable endowment funds that
receive charitable donations from alumni and other philanthropists, but
those funds are usually restricted for specific purposes.
In Illinois, as in most states, state funding used to make up the
largest single source of a university’s total funding, followed by
tuition and fees. Federal funds, not including student financial aid
such as Pell grants, typically account for only about 10% to 12% of a
university’s total revenue.
But since around the 1980s, according to the National Center for
Education Statistics, as higher education costs have risen, states have
not kept pace, forcing universities to rely more heavily on tuition and
fees.
Jay Gatrell, president of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston,
told the committee that trend has had a disproportionate impact on
smaller regional universities compared to larger flagship universities.
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Nicholas Jones, left, executive vice president of the University of
Illinois System, testifies before a House Committee opposing a bill
to overhaul the way Illinois funds public universities. Also
testifying in favor of the bill are Southern Illinois University
System President Daniel Mahoney, center, and Eastern Illinois
University President Jay Gatrell. (Capitol News Illinois photo by
Peter Hancock)
“The reality is that regional public universities serve a significantly
greater proportion of low-income, first-generation and underserved
students than our nation’s flagship campuses do,” he said. “For that
reason, higher education funding like the K 12 model should account for
these disparities.”
According to estimates provided to the committee, if the proposed
formula were being used today, EIU would be ranked as one of the
neediest universities in the state, with funding currently at only 49%
of its adequacy target. Only Western Illinois University in Macomb, at
48% of its adequacy target, would rank lower.
U of I is most-adequately funded
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, currently at 89% of
its adequacy target, is considered the most adequately funded school
under the proposed model and would therefore be last in line for new
funding.
Nicholas Jones, executive vice president for the U of I System — which
also includes campuses in Chicago and Springfield — said that would be
unfair to an institution that serves 53% of all public university
students in Illinois.
“Equity and adequacy are shared goals, but the proposed equitable
funding legislation does not achieve equity or adequacy,” he said.
“Instead, it redistributes resources in ways that under-resource the
state’s strongest public universities, those that drive Illinois’
workforce development, anchor the research enterprise and empower
economic competitiveness.”
The bill passed the House committee that deals with higher education
appropriations by a vote of 12-4. The vote came as House members were
working hard to meet a Friday deadline for House bills to pass out of
committees.
As that deadline approached, many bills passed out of various committees
with a verbal understanding that they would be brought back for further
amendments before being voted on by the full House. But Ammons said she
expects no further substantive amendments to the higher education
funding bill, adding, “But I’m open to talk to anyone who wants to talk
to me.”
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