Chicago Tribune
The Rev. Jesse Jackson told students at the cash-strapped Chicago State University on Friday that he is an ally to all Illinois public universities waiting for money to flow again from Springfield.
More than 100 students listened to Jackson speak Friday afternoon inside the Cordell Reed Student Union Building at the predominantly black university on the South Side.
Chicago State University is the first school in Illinois to publicly describe what effect the pending crisis is having on its operations. The university of about 4,600 students is expected to run out of reserve funds by March 1, putting its future in jeopardy, school officials acknowledged..
About 30 percent, or more than $36 million, of the Chicago State’s funding comes from the state.
“We really don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Paris Griffin, a Chicago State student who attended the rally and personally spoke with Jackson after his speech. “If we do make it through this semester, we’re not sure we’ll make it through semesters to come.”
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and powerful Democratic lawmakers have kept the funding spigot turned off as their seven-month-long impasse over a new fiscal budget continues to put universities and colleges in dire straits.
A letter sent last week from presidents of the state’s nine public universities to Rauner and legislators said the stalemate will result in public higher education being “damaged beyond repair.”
“We’re doing the best we can to express the consequences of what would happen if there is a massive disruption of services at Chicago State University to the legislature, to the leaders and to the governor,” said university spokesman Thomas Wogan.
Officials at Chicago State University are scrambling to find any possible way keep the school running past the beginning of March.
“We have the moral, legal and ethical obligation to complete the semester,” Wogan said.
The looming threat of shuttering public universities puts Illinois in “uncharted waters,” Wogan said. No public university in the country has ever shut their doors because of state funding problems, he said.
In order to help buffer students from the state budget problems, Chicago State University is covering about $5 million of state scholarships for low-income students known as Monetary Award Program grants, which were halted during the deadlock.
Operation Save CSU, a student-led organization, sprang up on campus to help raise funds for the school. Griffin, a member of the student movement and president of the university’s student government association, said students are working with the administration to find other ways to keep Chicago State University running.
