Getting out: Many students leaving Illinois to attend college

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20170930/getting-out-many-students-leaving-illinois-to-attend-college

SPRINGFIELD, IL –  (Tim Landis, Springfield Journal Register.  Please click on the link for the full story.  Here is an excerpt below.)

Illinois has the second-highest rate nationally of college freshmen choosing to leave the state to pursue higher education — a mark it hit even before the state’s two-year budget impasse — and preliminary figures this fall suggest the numbers continue to look grim.

Between 2000 and 2014, when the out-migration hit an all-time high, the number of freshmen leaving Illinois to attend college shot up by about 64 percent, according to a study earlier this year by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Only New Jersey, which also has had state budget woes, exceeded Illinois in loss of students to out-of-state schools.

The trend was even more pronounced among students attending four-year colleges and universities. Of those freshmen, nearly half chose to attend out of state schools in 2015.

That all-time high was hit even before the state’s colleges and universities weathered the effects of a two-year state budget impasse, which left institutions cutting budgets and programs and put financial aid for thousands of students on hold or in limbo.