NEIU’s Board of Trustees (BoT) held their first meetings of the academic year this month. Among the key takeaways were NEIU’s enrollment gains and retention shortfalls, a budget proposal for 2026, as well as community concerns highlighting infrastructure, funding and staff workload.
Enrollment
Trustee Ann P. Kalayil highlighted NEIU’s enrollment success this year by citing an article in Crain’s Chicago Business with the headline “Northeastern Illinois University sees first enrollment gain in almost 15 years.” In a September 13 Targeted Announcement (TA), NEIU announced a Fall enrollment of 5,734 students, a 4.2% increase from last Fall. This is the first time NEIU has seen a year-on-year increase in enrollment since 2010, according to the Crain’s Business article.
Kalayil praised President Katrina Bell-Jordan, faculty and staff for their efforts, “I really, really want to commend President Bell-Jordan… and your cabinet and faculty and staff for working really, really hard to move this needle forward, and I cannot tell you how important it is to recognize and celebrate this significant accomplishment.”
Pres. Bell-Jordan, in the Sept. 13, 2024 TA also thanked the NEIU community, “I extend my gratitude to the leadership of Northeastern’s Recruitment, Admissions, Enrollment and Academic Affairs teams, who have worked tirelessly to launch our Fall 2024 class. Their collaboration… with faculty and other University stakeholders, has set the stage for continued growth and success in our recruitment, admissions and enrollment efforts.”
However, NEIU did not meet its retention goals for the year. Instead of a 2% increase in retention of first-time full-time students who enrolled in 2023 remaining in 2024, NEIU’s retention rate dropped to 52.3%, representing a 10% decrease from last year.
In a statement before the BoT’s Finance, Buildings and Grounds Committee on Sept. 19, 2024, Pres. Bell-Jordan admitted, “The data aren’t so great. They’re quite sobering in terms of our student retention and success numbers.”
Concerns and Infrastructure
During public comment at the full board meeting on Sept. 19, a number of concerns were raised by members of the NEIU community. Among them were the numerous elevators that are currently out of service, a lack of air conditioning in the PE Complex, and a number of employees who are unable to take vacation days and are underpaid.
Two commenters pointed out the multiple elevators that break down regularly on campus. NEIU put out a Targeted Announcement on Sept. 20, 2024, detailing the status of current elevators in need of repair on campus. Among those, most are expected to begin repairs by the end of the month. The Student Union elevator is expected to begin repairs in mid-October when parts arrive. The west elevator of Lech Walesa Hall’s parts are still on order but have not yet arrived. The Independent will be covering NEIU’s elevator repairs in more detail in a later article.
Another commenter, Robin Heggum, a professor in the Health Sciences department, brought to the board’s attention that the air conditioning in the PE Complex, which covers all of the offices and two of the three classrooms, stopped working in June 2024 and has yet to be fixed. She said that noisy fan units only temporarily “take the edge off” from the heat.
Heather Carper, who works in Financial Aid, told the board that many of the people in her department are losing their vacation time because, due to a lack of staffing, they are unable to use all of it.
“They’re like, ‘Why can’t we just get that paid out? Because we’re not getting enough staff to be able to take our time off,’” Carper said, quoting the sentiments of her colleagues whose vacation hours were lost because they were unable to utilize them all.
Carper also relayed from one of her colleagues that the grocery store, Aldi, paid better than his current position did when he was hired three years ago. Aldi recently announced that its national starting pay average for cashiers would increase to $18 an hour.
“Even with his promotion,” Carper said of her colleague, “Aldi still pays more, and his landlord doesn’t take tuition waivers.”
Budgets and Funding
Pres. Bell-Jordan, brought up Illinois Senate Bill 3965, as did Dr. Brandon Bisbey, the president of NEIU’s faculty union, University Professionals of Illinois. The bill, titled the Adequate and Equitable Funding Formula for Public Universities Bill, would fund higher education in Illinois on an adequacy and equity formula similar to how Illinois currently funds primary K-12 education. According to an article by Inside Higher Ed, this new funding formula would primarily benefit regional and minority-serving universities, such as NEIU.
“According to the funding formulas metrics, we are the least adequately funded state university in Illinois,” Dr. Bisbey told the board during public comment. “Only 39% of the state funding we need to serve our students.” NEIU could see a significant increase in state funding if this bill were to pass.
The Board of Trustees also approved NEIU’s Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget request that will be sent to the Illinois Board of Higher Education. The budget request Iincluded in that budget request is funding for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant bathrooms, repairs for the pool in the PE Complex, as well as new roofs for nearly every building on the Main Campus.
