Employees at the University of Illinois Urbana campus are pushing back against a proposal to eliminate a 50 percent tuition discount for their children.
They are getting some help from State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who says the nearly $10 million dollars that would be saved annually by ending the tuition waivers wouldn’t be worth the damage it would do to state universities and their employees.
At a news conference on the Urbana campus, office worker Molly McLaughlin said the tuition waiver is one reason she decided to work at the U of I.
“It is one of the things that keeps me in the state,” she said. “If it is taken away, combined with the pension crisis we are also facing, my family will mostly likely join the 95-thousand others that have left the state this year.”
Ammons says she’s met with the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, “… and shared with him how detrimental this will be for the university and its ability to recruit staff,” she said. “I believe he understands that and, hopefully, by the time we get back from spring break, would have taken it in consideration.”
When he introduced his proposal early last month, Franks described Illinois as "pretty much on a lifeboat.”
"This is not the time that we can continue to have these type of perks," he said.
Franks chairs the House State Government Administration Committee, where the bill has been held on second reading. Passage on a third reading would send it to the House floor.
- Jim Meadows of Illinois Public Media contributed to this story.
