As reported by the Chicago Daily News, sister paper of the Chicago Sun-Times:
University of Illinois administrators voted this week to raise tuition costs for in-state freshmen for the first time in six years. The base tuition for incoming freshmen in 2020 will jump to $12,254 in Urbana-Champaign, $10,776 in Chicago and $9,502.50 in Springfield.
In early January 1978, the Chicago Daily News also reported about proposed tuition hikes at Illinois public universities.
“A $48 annual tuition increase for undergraduates at Illinois public universities and a $64 annual increase for graduate students was recommended Tuesday by the staff of the Board of Higher Education,” begins a Jan. 3, 1978 article in the Daily News titled “State colleges ask for new tuition hikes.”
That increase brought annual tuition at the University of Illinois up to a whopping $634. Southern Illinois University went up to $570, Northeastern Illinois and Chicago State went up to $558, and Illinois State and Northern Illinois now clocked in at $548 per year.
“In addition, the costs of college room and board, books and other supplies have been going up,” the Daily News reported. “The average of these items went from $1,789 four years ago to $2,107 this school year. At Champaign for example, room and board went up $134 this year to $1,560.”
