Should Illinois have a second flagship university? (Chicago, Champaign: high school, living in)

[FalstaffBlues]

Originally Posted by Bitey

Eh... sorry but Chicago legislators make up, what, 1/4th of the legislature? SIU may have been a step above the other directional schools but it was never close to a flagship university in scale or reputation compared to U of I. And it looks likes lots of downstaters have stopped going there too, evidently preferring the easier access to SIUE. Students up here certainly have no obligation to prop up a university that's 6 hours away.

This is moronic. Chicagoland legislators make up more than 2/3 the assembly. The northern 3rd of the state makes up over 3/4 of the assembly. SIU was not just another school. It was a top public university in the country. Do you get that?

Students quit going to school in Illinois when they can pay 1/2 the price in MO, IN, Iowa, KY and WI

Of course it wasn’t like the U of I. That isn’t require for “flagship” status. Iowa State is THE land grant university in Iowa and it doesn’t have close to the reputation of University of Iowa. Nonetheless, Iowa State is a Flagship school.

[SkylarkPhotoBooth]

Originally Posted by Bitey

Eh... sorry but Chicago legislators make up, what, 1/4th of the legislature?

I assume he means the entire Illinois portion of Chicagoland, which to be fair is more than 2/3 of the population of the state-- and that's not to mention other northern Illinois population centers (like Rockford, Quad Cities, Kankakee) that are similarly far from Carbondale. It's not hard to see how SIU might get less congressional support than universities in the central and northern parts of the state.

It's a problem inherent in having such a large (or more accurately, long) state with the population so skewed to one end of it-- and I acknowledge this even as someone who loves Chicago and has never been to Carbondale.

[SkylarkPhotoBooth]

Sure enough, as of 2018, the only Carnegie R1 state schools in Illinois are UIUC, UIC, and SIU:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

That puts SIU in a theoretical two-way tie to be the state's second flagship, as far as I'm concerned, though I'd say SIU would have the historical advantage while UIC would have the edge now.

[FalstaffBlues]

Sorry if I’m making it sound like a Chicago v. downstate thing. It isn’t. It is a U of I v. SIU thing. SIU was built by Chicagoans.

Also, it would not be surprising if UIC surpasses UIUC in the next 50 years. Another round of Global reurbanization is afoot. UIC better positioned to prosper in the 21st century

[Bitey]

Originally Posted by FalstaffBlues

This is moronic. Chicagoland legislators make up more than 2/3 the assembly. The northern 3rd of the state makes up over 3/4 of the assembly. SIU was not just another school. It was a top public university in the country. Do you get that?

Students quit going to school in Illinois when they can pay 1/2 the price in MO, IN, Iowa, KY and WI

Of course it wasn’t like the U of I. That isn’t require for “flagship” status. Iowa State is THE land grant university in Iowa and it doesn’t have close to the reputation of University of Iowa. Nonetheless, Iowa State is a Flagship school.

OK, so now we've shifted the culprits from "Chicago" to "Chicagoland," and we've shifted the reason for SIUC's decline from "the legislature didn't want it to compete with U of I" to "students quit going to school in Illinois when they can pay 1/2 the price elsewhere."

Really, half the price? And why on Earth would Chicago-area legislators care about a supposed competition between two downstate schools for top students? Do you have any evidence for this claim?

One can have a reasonable discussion about to what extent and why the university system is in rough shape in general or why SIU's enrollment in particular is declining. But SIU was never a "flagship" university by any common understanding of the term.

[FalstaffBlues]

Originally Posted by Bitey

OK, so now we've shifted the culprits from "Chicago" to "Chicagoland," and we've shifted the reason for SIUC's decline from "the legislature didn't want it to compete with U of I" to "students quit going to school in Illinois when they can pay 1/2 the price elsewhere."

Really, half the price? And why on Earth would Chicago-area legislators care about a supposed competition between two downstate schools for top students? Do you have any evidence for this claim?

One can have a reasonable discussion about to what extent and why the university system is in rough shape in general or why SIU's enrollment in particular is declining. But SIU was never a "flagship" university by any common understanding of the term.

Ok try to follow.

1.) There is no difference between Chicago and Chicagoland to anyone who lives outside of it. No one gives a damn. Chicago and Chicagoland are interchangeable to literally everyone in the world who isn’t in Chicago or Chicagoland.

2.) Chicago = Illinois. The legislature is overwhelmingly made up of Chicago(land) politicians. The students that fill up Illinois universities are overwhelmingly Chicago(land) students.

3.) Those Chicago(land) politicians chose to support U of I over SIU so that it would cease to compete with U of I for Chicago(land) students.

4.) Chicago(land) students started looking elsewhere as that same legislature pushed the cost of higher ed to a point where it was uneconomical for Illinois residents to get their degree at Illinois universities.

5.) What is the common understanding of the term “flagship?” Because to me it seems like you’re hung up on the name while ignoring the historic enrollment and research that clearly make/made SIU the other Flagship university. If a top 100 university and top 50 public university doesn’t qualify for “Flagship” status in your eyes then your vision is warped.

SIU was a better University than the majority of the schools that currently make up the SEC and BIG 12 as recently as the 80s. It was absolutely a flagship university.

If it didn’t have a directional name and had D-1 sports would that be enough for you?

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Jon998877

I think its NW by a decent margin over Michigan, then Illinois and Wisconsin.... then it seems like a closter of schools about equal (OSU, Purdue, Iowa, Indiana etc)… then at the back is Nebraska

A blue and maize t-shirt welcomed UNL into the B1G by “honoring “ MSU for now being the second worst school incthe conference

And a few other points not related to Jon’s comment but coming from others...

By any ranking system I’ve seen, UIC comes in as second best after Illinois. ISU comes in third

In the hay day of SIU (circa 1960s, early 70s), UIC(C) was just getting started as a commuter school (no dorms allowed), no night school (schools like DePaul and Roosevelt fought this with their first metro Chicagoland competier offering lower tuition. My point being that SIU very arguably came across as the second best known university but today UIC is higher profile, higher academic than SIU..and had been long before SIU’s financial problems began (and on that score, I blame Rauner more than anyone else

Never knew that UI is responsible for blocking an ISU engr school. Sounds like the more famous ways that U-M triied to block MSU....on Big Ten membership, on becoming a university, etc. of course, that was a fight between two Big Boys which is not the UI-ISU relationship

And a bit of tag line stuff...both related to Illinois: when NU started identifying itself athletically as “Chicago’’s Big Ten team”, Illinois felt the need to counter with “Our state, our team.” ISU brands itself as “Illinois’s first public university” to which, if they liked, they could add a second tagline “Not the one you thought it would be, right?”

[damba]

Originally Posted by FalstaffBlues

Ok try to follow.

1.) There is no difference between Chicago and Chicagoland to anyone who lives outside of it. No one gives a damn. Chicago and Chicagoland are interchangeable to literally everyone in the world who isn’t in Chicago or Chicagoland.

2.) Chicago = Illinois. The legislature is overwhelmingly made up of Chicago(land) politicians. The students that fill up Illinois universities are overwhelmingly Chicago(land) students.

3.) Those Chicago(land) politicians chose to support U of I over SIU so that it would cease to compete with U of I for Chicago(land) students.

4.) Chicago(land) students started looking elsewhere as that same legislature pushed the cost of higher ed to a point where it was uneconomical for Illinois residents to get their degree at Illinois universities.

5.) What is the common understanding of the term “flagship?” Because to me it seems like you’re hung up on the name while ignoring the historic enrollment and research that clearly make/made SIU the other Flagship university. If a top 100 university and top 50 public university doesn’t qualify for “Flagship” status in your eyes then your vision is warped.

SIU was a better University than the majority of the schools that currently make up the SEC and BIG 12 as recently as the 80s. It was absolutely a flagship university.

If it didn’t have a directional name and had D-1 sports would that be enough for you?

This is one giant ‘red herring’ argument. Sorry.

[damba]

Originally Posted by Bitey

But SIU was never a "flagship" university by any common understanding of the term.

Agreed.

[SkylarkPhotoBooth]

Originally Posted by FalstaffBlues

Sorry if I’m making it sound like a Chicago v. downstate thing. It isn’t. It is a U of I v. SIU thing.

Well, you did say Chicagoans threw SIU in the trash.

Originally Posted by FalstaffBlues

SIU was built by Chicagoans.

Interesting. I didn't know that, either. Still, though, both universities were established in the 1860's, when the population of Illinois was probably more rural and equally distributed throughout the state. In the 1870 Census St. Louis was still more populated than Chicago and Chicago was only 12% of Illinois' population. Just 20 years earlier, Illinois had fewer people than Indiana or Kentucky. That's not to mention how much longer it would have taken to traverse the length of the state back then. It would have made a lot of sense to have the first public universities geographically spread out that way.

Originally Posted by FalstaffBlues

Also, it would not be surprising if UIC surpasses UIUC in the next 50 years. Another round of Global reurbanization is afoot. UIC better positioned to prosper in the 21st century

Agreed. Urban public universities have made big strides in general in recent decades, perhaps none more than UIC, and I expect that trend to continue.