Change inevitable for UI in next century
By JULIE WURTH
News-Gazette Staff Writer

   URBANA – Copies were made on mimeograph machines, computer programs consumed boxes of punch cards, and tuition was about $250 when Jane Amundsen graduated from the University of Illinois.
   A mere generation ago, it was a world away from today's university – before the Internet, Windows, e-mail, even faxes.
   These days, dorm rooms are wired for PCs, computer labs dot the campus, and students do homework, correspond with teachers or take entire courses online.
   Meanwhile, a building boom has transformed whole sections of campus. The Beckman Institute anchors a high-tech quadrangle where Illinois Field once stood. Buildings from the turn of the last century fell to make way for Grainger Engineering Library and a new engineering quad. Tennis courts and baseball diamonds sit on fields where farm animals once grazed.
   With a more ethnically diverse student body, "kids are exposed to so much more," said Amundsen, a parent educator in rural Champaign County.
   Even dorm food has changed. "We had two choices – meat and meatless," she said. "Now they have ice cream machines, salad bars and a lot more choices."
   Amundsen and her husband Steve, both 1972 UI graduates, can only imagine what campus life will be like in the 21st century when their two sons go to college.
   They're sure of one thing: It will be expensive. The Amundsens recently bought two semesters of state university tuition for each of their sons through Illinois' prepaid tuition program.
   "I'm a little overwhelmed by how people are able to manage sending their kids to school," she said. "That's going to be a major challenge for us."
Technology everywhere
   UI administrators and higher education experts shy away from predicting what the UI will look like 100, or even 50, years from now.
   But on a shorter horizon – 20 or 30 years – they agree it will be more high-tech, more diverse and more costly.
   UI President James Stukel said the UI's core values won't change, but technology's impact will be everywhere.
   In his UI of the future:
   – Students and faculty will use more technology in the classroom and laboratory.
   – The Urbana campus will focus even more on its traditional strengths in engineering, agriculture and life sciences. It will remain a leader in information technology and rank among the top five nationally in biotechnology and related fields.
   – The university will need a smaller support staff as it centralizes and automates its management systems. Employees who remain will be more specialized and technology-savvy.
   – With common processes universitywide, the UI will be less bureaucratic and more user-friendly than the "convoluted" place it is today. Individuals should be able to download data on just about any aspect of university operations, Stukel said. "It'll be a more open place."
   – The UI, always the engine of the local economy, will become even more important to Champaign-Urbana's fortunes. Initiatives under way to develop two research parks – one for biotechnology, one for information technology – will forge strong partnerships with the community, help start-up firms and attract leading entrepreneurs in technology development, Stukel said.
   Champaign-Urbana's population will grow as talented workers are lured here by new high-tech jobs, Stukel said.
   Technology transfer could soon become a fourth component of the UI's three-part mission of teaching, research and service, said Vice President Sylvia Manning, now interim chancellor at the UI Chicago.
   Gov. George Ryan's plan to fund major biotechnology development at the UI is only the latest sign of a trend that's been building for years, she said.
   "There's a growing understanding that that is where the economic growth of this country lies," Manning said.
   Stukel's predictions match the plans he mapped out five years ago when he became president. He wanted to stay ahead of technological change, rather than have it control the UI's destiny.
   "With each passing year it's impacting us more," he said. "The question is, can we take advantage of it?"
   Stukel thinks most colleges and universities will survive the transition, but "where you are in the pecking order will change. Look around you. Technology is changing our lives in a big way. Those institutions who ignore that will fall away."
The campus experience
   Despite the growth of "virtual universities" and online classes, administrators are convinced the traditional college campus will survive well into the next century.
   "It has to do with socialization, with growing up. It has to do with a person's development," Stukel said.
   But the experience itself will change. Increasingly, Manning said, students will pick up more learning through the Internet.
   More and more classes on campus will have an online component for group discussions, quizzes or homework. Students will shop online for classes they can't find at their own school.
   Instead of taking community college classes over the summer to lighten their academic load, students will enroll in UI classes over the Internet and still enjoy a summer at home.
   Manning thinks most continuing education for professionals will move off-campus, into the distance learning arena.
   "Things will loosen up," Manning said.
   "Ultimately, I think that the very clear lines between distance education, continuing education and regular education are going to get blurred."
Bigger isn't better
   The UI's physical profile could change dramatically in the next two decades, with new research parks on the north and south campus and relocation of the South Farms.
   But officials don't see the university growing much overall, or acquiring any more campuses. After huge expansion in the 1950s and 1960s, enollment at the Urbana campus has stayed close to 35,000 for three decades, and there are no plans to make it another Ohio State – which had almost 55,000 students in the fall of 1999.
   "The U of I has not been eager to turn itself into a larger system," Manning said.
   The newest UI campus in Springfield – the former Sangamon State University, acquired in 1995 – will soon expand to a four-year undergraduate program. It was formerly open only to juniors, seniors and graduate students.
   UI officials say the program won't get too big, as it's designed to have a small, liberal arts-type feel. They also don't want to irritate legislators who worry the program will lead to a much bigger expansion, draining students from other state schools.
   Still, Manning said, that campus could grow as demand increases throughout higher education.
   In 100 years, the bachelor's degree will be equivalent to today's high school diploma – a must for basic education.
   "At that point the existing campuses will not meet the demand," she said. "Under those circumstances, everybody will grow, including Springfield."
The Chicago factor
   The UI Chicago, meanwhile, is poised to become "one of the best urban universities in the country," Stukel predicted, helping the city solve problems in a way that Northwestern University and Chicago's other private schools can't, or don't.
   It will also grow in physical size. A $500 million public-private redevelopment will add new student apartments, academic buildings, retail shops and private housing to a run-down section bordering the south campus.
   Administrators say the campus will become more "confident" as its research reputation improves.
   "It will become much less concerned with comparisons to Urbana," Manning said.
   She sees that as no threat to Urbana's prestige, as the two campuses are complementary. Half of the UI Chicago's state funding pays for its medical center – money that would not otherwise go to Urbana, she said.
   "This is no longer at the point where the advancement of one campus is going to come at the expense of the other," she said.
   "There's inevitable competition. That's actually healthy. But do I believe that Urbana would be better off if Chicago wasn't around? No."
   With its ethnic mix, the UI Chicago is a step ahead of other universities, Stukel said. The student body – where white students are a minority – reflects what the working world will look like in 20 years. With America's changing demographics, and increasing globalization of the economy, future leaders will have to understand differences among ethnic groups, he said.
   On the health-care side, the emphasis at UI Chicago will shift to diagnostics and treatment, aided by advances in biotechnology, Stukel said.
   In the late 1950s and early 1960s, most Big Ten universities took advantage of a new stream of federal health research money by focusing on curing diseases. The UI medical center did not, putting its efforts into training more doctors. It soon grew into the largest medical school in the country.
   "In 20 years, we will be more balanced," Stukel said.
A private or public UI?
   Officials expect the Urbana campus to look more like a private university in the years ahead.
   The school's endowment is nearing $1 billion, and reliance on private donations will only increase because "the state is no longer willing or able to support faculty salaries to the extent private universities are," Stukel said.
   "Tuition will have to rise in Urbana in order to meet those goals," he added.
   That means the campus will have to offer more scholarships and financial aid to ensure it remains accessible to low-income students, he said.
   But will it?
   Some observers think affordability will remain a problem well into the next century. Students are taking on ever-higher debt to pay for college, in part because financial-aid loans are so much more plentiful than outright grants.
   Tuition at public and private schools overall has doubled in the last 20 years after inflation. At Urbana, it's jumped from $682 a year to $3,546.
   Administrators blame a drop in state support, especially during the 1980s. Once more than half of the UI's budget, state funding now makes up a third or less.
   Stukel bristles at those who say the UI is too expensive. At roughly $4,500 a year for tuition and fees, it's still a bargain compared with private schools charging $20,000-plus, he said.
   But "there's no guarantee it will stay that way," said F. King Alexander, assistant professor of education at the UI.
   He predicts the UI and other top public universities will have to raise tuition substantially to keep pace with private schools.
   Alexander argues that direct student aid policies adopted in the 1970s – where financial aid is channeled directly to students based on how much tuition they pay – gave colleges an incentive to raise prices.
   Private schools can do so at will, but public schools have to remain accessible – and accountable to state legislators, Alexander said.
   Free of state cost controls, private schools were able to raise tuition and spend more on their students and professors, which led to a "spending Cold War," he said.
   In 1980, the average full professor at a private research university earned about $4,000 more than his counterpart at a public research institution. By 1998, that difference had ballooned to $21,700. For the UI, the gap grew from $3,600 to $12,400.
   Alexander said states could provide an infusion of cash to help public universities compete, but that would cause a "taxpayer backlash," he said.
   The government could also change its financial aid policies and recognize that "funding mechanisms are out of whack." Because of strong lobbying by private universities, however, that isn't likely, he said.
   "The only alternative is the tuition route," he said.
   "It will make us less accessible," he added.
   The UI can afford to be more selective. The schools Alexander worries about are public universities more reliant on state aid and less able to raise money on their own.
   "We could charge $15,000 a year and still get a lot of people. Eastern couldn't do that. Western couldn't do that," he said.
   "What we have here is a national crisis in public higher education."
   Manning worries that te trend will limit choice for whole groups of students – not just along economic but racial lines.
   "The full range of possibilities in higher education really needs to be available to the full range of the population. It doesn't mean that every single person needs to have every single option. It does mean that the options shouldn't be predicted based on the color of your skin."
   "The fact that some individuals' choices may be limited by money is one thing; if those individuals come from one or two groups, then I think we have a serious social issue."

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