
By Dave Dahl
CHICAGO– A post-budget-speech victory lap at the University of Illinois Chicago Thursday included a pitch to help College Illinois. The pre-paid college tuition program’s six years away from insolvency.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker says tuition costs grew faster than the investments parents and grandparents made.
“This will have to be a sustained investment over a number of years to make sure we are making good on the contracts we promised to these families years ago,” Pritzker said, noting the program started more than twenty years ago. “College Illinois stopped taking new contractors and investors in 2017, yet the liability remains, right? There are kids who are yet to hit college age and who are owed a college tuition.”
The budget proposal includes $27 million to help make it right.