Throughout the past several months the governor and state legislators of Illinois have been working to pass legislation that would allow the Illinois Community colleges to start offering baccalaureate degrees. Illinois would become the 25th state to allow this to happen.
The primary reason for such legislation was to offer a way to fill the workforce gaps that have existed across the state. It was also a way to provide access to higher education in those areas of the state which have been referred to as baccalaureate degree deserts. These are areas in the state that are 40, 50 or more miles from a baccalaureate degree university or a four-year college.
In response to explaining how baccalaureate degrees in the Illinois Community College the following was offered by Jim Reed, Executive Director of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association:
We’ve looked at sort of critical areas like nursing, early childhood education, cyber security, and manufacturing. These are all areas that are struggling to find qualified talent, and so that’s why the importance of this legislation is really focused on workforce needs.
Illinois teacher shortages 2024-2025
The importance of this legislation in the education area in Illinois to help overcome the severe shortages can be easily understood when looking at the following facts:
- 3,864 teaching positions were unfilled for a vacancy rate of 2.8%.]
- 87% of education leaders indicated a minor, serious or very serious problem with teacher shortages.
- A reported 6,117 teacher positions were remedied through alternative measures such as hiring substitutes, hiring retired educators, combining classes, and increasing class sizes, among other short-term solutions (2025, Illinois State Board of Education).
Resistance to the proposed legislation
After this proposed legislation received strong resistance from the state’s universities a new approach was offered by the universities. Six of the largest universities in the state took a ‘no position’ or ‘neutral’ stance after receiving considerable negative kickback.
This new position came after these universities also had some further discussion with the governor’s office people and some of the other stakeholders.
The next resistance came from three four-year colleges with large populations of minority students. They are all three having significant enrollment decreases and do not wish to have the competition. Their argument centers around the numerous programs on their campuses that have very light enrollments.
To now move to get the legislation approved it would make sense to offer a ‘Proposal B’ which is to allow community colleges in the more rural areas to be approved in the first round of legislative approvals. These three colleges now putting up resistance are located in the Chicago areas that have some of the most significant needs on finding qualified teachers and teachers of color to better match up with their student bodies.
The legislation that the universities would approve would need to include the following:
- It would have to require community colleges to provide notice to universities prior to performing a feasibility analysis on the creation of a community college baccalaureate program.
- It would create an application process that fosters multiple opportunities for collaboration among universities and community colleges.
- It would also have to provide a ‘reconsideration period’ where universities can demonstrate their ability to create cost-effective and accessible partnership agreements with a community college before program approval.
- In addition a comprehensive, multi-step evaluation process on duplication to ensure that any duplication of programming is warranted based upon metrics approved by the universities,
In essence, the universities would have to have almost complete control over the process of allowing community colleges to start offering baccalaureate degrees.
Geography is a primary challenge
The baccalaureate degree development is greatly needed in the rural areas throughout Illinois, California, Texas and other states. The state universities nearest to the rural areas in Illinois are presently going through fairly severe downsizing due to student enrollment declines over the last 10-20 years.
Several of these universities started out as teacher colleges and were at one time able to meet the needs of K12 schools in graduating sufficient numbers of teachers each year. Now with these colleges in Illinois and most other states no longer able to meet these needs now and in the years ahead, something new needs to happen.
Western Illinois University enrolled nearly 12,000 students during the years of 2010-2024. Going into the 2024-2025 school year the enrollment was projected between 5,500 and 6,000 students. Similar enrollment drops have also been experienced at Northern, Eastern and Southern Illinois Universities.
Florida and Washington have found that expanding baccalaureate degrees into their state community colleges has not had much effect on their university enrollments.
Very little has changed
Illinois’ governor and legislators have been making a strong effort to allow their state community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees in those areas of greatest need and not presently being met. Teacher shortages are one of these areas most in need.
There continues to be ‘resistance’ from the universities and the latest changes proposed would give the state universities most of the control on which baccalaureate degrees would be approved.
The cost of this ongoing resistance to the thousands of state K12 students receiving qualified teachers continues to be very high. As another new school year approaches, it appears very little has changed in Illinois in solving its severe teacher shortages.
References
- Forrest, S. (2024, June 17). Why offer certain types of baccalaureate degrees through Illinois Community Colleges? University of Illinois News Bureau. Retrieved June 11, 2025 at https://www.bing.com/search?q=illinois+community+college+baccalaureate+degree+resistence&cvid
- Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (2025). Educator Shortage Report: Academic Year 2024 – 2025. Retrieved June 6 at https://iarss.org/2024-2025-educator-shortage/
- The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS) 24-25 Illinois Educator Shortage Study and associated materials. Retrieved May 22, 2025 2024-2025 Educator Shortage – IARSS
