Let’s be clear: This is not a talent problem. These students are driven and capable. Rather, students, especially those who are low-income and first-generation, often lack access to the career-readiness skills, networks, confidence boosters, and experiences that will allow them to land that first strong job — a full-time role that requires a bachelor’s degree and includes some combination of promotion pathways, benefits, and a market-competitive starting salary — or enrollment in graduate school.
Unfortunately, the institutions that serve the bulk of these students, regional public universities and Minority-Serving Institutions, face persistent underfunding. Illinois’ current funding model applies across-the-board increases or decreases to all public universities’ operating funds, reinforcing outdated allocations and ignoring shifts in enrollment. These institutions are asked to do more with less. They educate and graduate students with high financial needs, while operating with limited career services budgets, fewer wraparound supports, and less alumni infrastructure to open doors into competitive job markets.
At Braven, the nonprofit I founded and lead, we work in partnership with higher education institutions like National Louis University, Northern Illinois University, and Chicago State University to embed career preparation into the undergraduate experience, by amplifying the great work of their career centers despite their limited resources. And, we’re seeing promising results: In 2024, 980 Braven Fellows graduated from our partner schools nationwide. This new class outpaced their peers nationally in quality outcome attainment by 18 percentage points (61% vs. 43%) within six months of graduation, demonstrating that with the right support students can achieve economic mobility and the American Dream.
What if every public, four-year university in Illinois had the resources to prepare students to succeed in the workforce and contribute meaningfully to our state’s economy? One powerful step toward that goal is to direct more funding to institutions that serve higher numbers of Pell Grant recipients, students who often face the steepest barriers to degree completion and career readiness.
Illinois Senate Bill 13, the proposed Adequate & Equitable Public University Funding Act, charts a path forward. It would overhaul the state’s public university funding model by introducing a new formula, administered by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, that distributes general operating funds based on each institution’s needs as determined by the specific student populations they serve. This includes key adjustments for universities enrolling more low-income students, in recognition of the additional support such students often require to persist and graduate. Crucially, SB 13 also establishes an Accountability & Transparency Committee to track how funds are used and measure progress on key outcomes like affordability, enrollment, persistence and degree completion.
Investing in equitable university funding isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s an economic imperative that will benefit Illinoisans. When all students have the opportunity to develop career-ready skills, our communities and workforce are stronger for it.
