By Susan Frick Carlman scarlman@stmedianetwork.com June 12, 2013 4:18PM
House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego), flanked by State Rep. Darlene Senger (R-Naperville), talks about a package of legislation Republican leaders say is designed to make college more affordable during a news conference on Wendesday, June 12, 2013, at North Central College. | Jeff Cagle~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: June 13, 2013 7:09PM
A group of Republican state legislators say they know how to bring a college education within reach for more Illinois residents.
The panel of state House GOP caucus members told those gathered at North Central College in Naperville Wednesday afternoon that the remedy involves a combination of tax deductions and tax credits that was devised by second-term Springfield Rep. Adam Brown.
The annual $1,000 tax credit would be available only to families earning less than $150,000 yearly, Brown said, and the $10,000 deduction would not come with the same limitations and restrictions that are attached to existing 529 prepaid college tuition savings plans such as College Illinois and Bright Start.
Brown said his proposal would enable families to invest the $10,000 with another independent agency, or keep the funds in savings.
?We feel like it will put Illinois on a more competitive page,? said Brown, who reported that the yearly cost of tuition, room and board at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has gone from $19,000 to $26,000 in the past decade.
House Republican Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, said he and his legislative peers continuously hear families lamenting the ever-increasing cost of earning a degree.
?We want to try to find a way that we can ease the burden for them,? Cross said.
It?s discouraging, he and other lawmakers said, to hear people say that their kids headed to Missouri or Iowa to attend school, simply because it was a more affordable option.
?The expense of college is prohibitive, but what?s no good is if Illinois schools aren?t competitive ? and frankly, they should be super competitive with our neighboring states,? said Rep. Ron Sandack, R-Downers Grove, who asserted that the state?s money woes have been ?imposed? on its schools. ?We?re seeing outright migration, and frankly a brain drain of our future work force that?s not going to be developed in our state.?
Rep. Darlene Senger, R-Naperville, has been close to the negotiations aimed at closing the state?s nearly $100 billion public pension shortfall, and pointed out that much discussion in recent months has centered on the proposal to shift more of the burden of retirement plan contributions to schools. For every additional 1 percent schools must pay into pension plans, Senger said, families pay 2 percent more in tuition.
?We?re being sensitive to the word ?cost? and what it costs you,? including both the literal expense and the cost to the state of losing its place among the states that provide the highest-quality education through their public schools, she said.
According to Cross, passage of the long-stalled gaming bill would bring $250 million to $300 million to the table to cover the estimated $85 million expense of Brown?s plan. A pension fix, Cross said, would cover the cost of the college-affordability measures in less than a week by stanching the daily flow of $17 million into the swelling liability sum.
?It?s imperative that we get this pension reform done,? Cross said.
The group?s appearance at North Central kicked off a statewide tour aimed at building support for the proposal, which could come to the floor later this year. Sandack framed the plan as the most logical solution yet put forth.
?I can?t see why anyone would fight this legislation rather than embrace it,? he said.
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