The Changing Composition of Illinois Community College Budgets and its Relationship to Local Property Values

Abstract

Illinois community colleges (CCs) receive much of their operating budgets from local property taxes and, as with primary and secondary schools, there are wide spending disparities among these jurisdictions caused by striking differences in taxable real estate values. In its 1992 annual report, the Illinois Community College Board noted that its lowest spending district, Illinois Eastern, allocated only 48 cents per full-time equivalent enrollment (FTE) for each dollar spent in Oakton, the district with the highest per-FTE expenditure. Of the state's thirty-eight CCs, this same year Oakton ranked second and Illinois Eastern ranked thirty-seventh in property wealth per student. Wide disparities in property values among primary and secondary school districts have led to various legislative, judicial, and citizen-initiated efforts meant to equalize per student spending among elementary and high school students statewide. Soon Illinois may encounter challenges similar to the ones it faced regarding how it funds primary and secondary education, this one involving CC financing. The problem has many immediate stakeholders: approximately two-thirds of all Illinois college students attend CCs. This project examines trends in revenue sources for individual Illinois CCs by measuring how these shifting expenditure levels correlate with changing property values in each CC district. The discussion then turns to considering what these results portend for possible challenges to how Illinois funds its CCs, an issue that may surface in other states as well. The paper closes by discussing the policy implications of these findings.