ChiRedbirdfan
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2017
- Messages
- 6,614
not all sold on NIU location, solely as respects to distance from home, hurting NIU more than it helps. Try driving all the way to SIU or try getting to WIU. Yes NIU has a commuter school element but look at UIC.. although UIC has quickly blown past all other state public unis and has strong momentum for many reasons.Jon99 said:Total Red said:GhostofMBA said:NIU and SIU have got it done in the past. They will still be around. If SIU had the name "Illinois State University", then things may look vastly different. NIU's mistake is its location. SIU's mistake is not changing the name. But both, imho, accomplished more than ISU.
Seriously? I don't know how NIU can claim location as a problem. The majority of students at state universities come from the Chicago suburbs so how can it be a problem to be the directional located closest?
If anybody has a location problem it's Illinois State. We're too close to Champaign. If you look at the colleges you listed at SIU the big difference came in 1970-1972 with the SIU school of Medicine and the SIU Law program. The powerful U of I lobby wouldn't want those located in Normal. So Illinois State continued to focus on quality undergraduate education. The result? Our enrollment has stayed strong while SIU-C and NIU have suffered declines. Illinois State is drawing better students with higher test scores.
I'm not convinced that SIU-C will be around as we know it. The state will continue to have severe budget problems. SIU-E now has a higher enrollement than SIU-C. There may not be a need for undergrad education at both campuses.
I think location hurts them in three ways..
1. You want to spend 4 years in Dekalb?
2. When you were that age, did you want to be 30 minutes from mom and dad? Or 2 hours?
3. Commuter school