institutional reports. For example, Northeastern Illinois University records scores on the Academic Profile, a standardized measurement instrument created by Educational Testing Service.

Progression and Attainment: The Illinois Board of Higher Education collects data on graduation and

retention rates. Both of these measures include data on public and private two- and four-year institutions. The 2008 Public Agenda for College and Career Success document reported differences, as statewide totals, in college attainment rates of whites and minorities.

Further Employment, Education, and Life: The Illinois Board of Higher Education reports licensure exam

ILLINOIS

Background/HistoryIllinois, the fifth most populous state, does not rank on either extreme in the educational attainment of its population. Both the portion of adults without an eighth-grade education and the portion with a graduate degree are above average, but neither ranks as one of the top 10 best or worst states.1

The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) was established in 1961 in response to rapidly increasing enrollments. IBHE is a coordinating board in charge of overseeing all sectors of higher education in the state. It is responsible for planning and policy development, budgeting, program review, and information systems. Over 200,000 students are enrolled in an Illinois public four-year institution, including the state’s flagship, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The IBHE has jurisdiction over the state’s two year institutions, which have been coordinated since 1965 by the Illinois Community College Board. There are currently 40 community college districts with 49 campuses, including Joliet Junior College, the first public junior/community college in the country. They collectively enroll 350,000 students.

Illinois is also home to well-known private institutions like the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

gatHering informationMeasurement isn’t sufficient for accountability, but it is necessary. Any legitimate effort to hold institutions

accountable for success must begin with a fair, accurate process for gauging success. Higher education is multifaceted in design and mission—there are many different kinds of institutions serving diverse student groups while working to accomplish a large variety of goals. Accountability systems that don’t examine all facets of an institution risk presenting a narrow, distorted view of success and creating unbalanced or even perverse incentives that are misaligned with institutional missions and larger policy goals.

Student OutcomesLearning: The Illinois Board of Education does not require evidence of student learning outcomes, but

some institutions do choose to include such data in their

ILLINOIS SCORE CARD

= Needs Improvement = In Progress = Best Practice

gatHering information

student outcomes

Learning

Progression and Attainment

Further Employment, Education, and Life

institutional Practices

Teaching and Engagement

Efficiency and Financial Stewardship

Equity, Access, and Affordability

Alignment With Pre K–12 Education

Scholarship and Research

economic and community development

Degree Production and Economic Impact

Arts, Culture, and Service

Adult Education and Extension Services

overall Quality of information

state- and systemwide information

using information

governance and strategic Planning

funding

transparency and markets

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iLLinois

pass rates in law, medicine, dentistry, and nursing with three years of data (2003–05) and national averages. Every institution in the state of Illinois (public and private, two- and four-year) releases the number of graduates who are employed or enrolled in further education one year after graduation. The IBHE also publishes an intermittent report on overall employer satisfaction with Illinois graduates. It asks employers to assess their employees on overall preparedness and knowledge and skills, as well as skills in computer literacy, reading, work habits, math, communication, creativity, etc. The last one came in 2005, and those results were compared alongside ones from 1998.

The Illinois Community College Board tracks the average annual earnings of 1994 completers each year for 10 years after completion. It also shows the pre- to post-completion earnings gains of program completers from 1998 to 2005. Earnings gains are tracked further by program and credit hours completed in five-credit intervals up to 60 hours. These measures are reported as system totals only.

Institutional PracticesTeaching and Engagement: The Illinois Board of Higher Education requires either the publication of National

Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) results or alumni undergraduate surveys, but the responses are not all meaningful. For example, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign asks alumni to give their present attitudes toward the university, but only includes “strongly positive,” “positive,” and “somewhat positive” choice options. For educational effectiveness, the worst answer a respondent could give is “slightly helpful.” It was conducted in 2005 as a five-year follow-up to 2000 graduates.

The Illinois Community College Board tracks faculty diversity figures by gender and part- or full-time status. It reports average class size and the percentage of classes with two to five, six to 10, 11–20, 21–35, 36–50, 51–100, and over 100 students.

Efficiency and Financial Stewardship: The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) tracks private

gifts, grants, and contracts and endowment income. It publishes data on the financial costs per credit hour for each institution and major. It computes the average number of credit hours per faculty by institution and level (lower and upper division undergraduate and graduate). The IBHE tracks institutional expenditures on salaries, departmental research, academic support, student

services, independent operations, institutional support, and operation and maintenance of the physical plant. Those are broken down by academic level (lower division and upper division undergraduate and graduate) and calculated per credit hour.

The Illinois Community College Board also tracks expenditures by function for instruction, academic support, student services, public service, organized research ($0 for all but two community college districts), auxiliary services, operations and maintenance, institutional support, and grants and waivers.

Equity, Access, and Affordability: The Illinois Board of Higher Education tracks the percentage of enrolled

students by gender, race, U.S. state, part- or full-time status, and transfer status. The Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) tracks student enrollment by program area, age, gender, part- or full-time status, race/ethnicity, academic year, geographic origin (in- or out-of-district, out-of-state, foreign country, and state or federal corrections), transfer status, and highest degree previously earned (GED, high school diploma, some college, certificate, associate degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree). The ICCB, in a separate document looking at its economic impact for the state, reported enrollment of students with disabilities by type (learning, attention deficit, psychological, mobility, low vision, hearing impaired, chronic conditions, etc.).

Illinois’ December 2008 Public Agenda for College and Career Success document reported the percentage of average family income needed to pay for college expenses, but only as a sector total for four-year public institutions. As sector totals for public universities and community colleges, the report also presented the remaining need of students in the two lowest income quintiles.

Alignment With Pre K–12 Education: The Illinois Community College Board tracks dual credit

enrollment, but only as system totals.

Scholarship and Research: Some, but not all, Illinois institutions report measures tracking scholarship

and research. For example, both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Southern Illinois University–Carbondale track the number of invention disclosures, U.S. patents filed and received, royalty income, and license agreements executed, but these measures are not standardized and are not applied to all public research institutions.

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Economic and Community DevelopmentDegree Production and Economic Impact: The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) tracks degree

production by degree type over a three-year period. Degree production data are disaggregated by race/ethnicity and gender. The IBHE also specifically tracks the number of undergraduate students completing the requirements for initial teacher certification. The Illinois Community College Board tracks degree completion by discipline and level.

Arts, Culture, and Service: Illinois does not publicly or systematically report accountability information on

this measure.

Adult Education and Extension Services: Illinois’ 2008 Public Agenda for College and Career Success

document reported enrollment in adult basic education programs as a state total, per adults age 18–64.

Overall Quality of InformationIn March 2007, the Illinois Board of Higher Education announced it was suspending the

collection of performance indicator data and institutional performance reports due to a review process. Thus, the most recent institutional data available come from 2006 documents. Those data are separated by institution, typically presented with a few years of measurements, and include data from public and private two- and four-year institutions. Some, but not all, of the data are disaggregated by important socioeconomic factors. The data are not compared to peers. The reports include institutional goals, but those can often be weak and/or vague.

State- and Systemwide InformationIllinois’ accountability systems for higher education are primarily focused on institution-level data. The

December 2008 Public Agenda for College and Career Success document contains statewide data on differences in college attainment rates of whites and minorities, the percentage of average family income needed to pay for college expenses, the remaining need of students in the two lowest income quintiles, and enrollment in adult basic education. Systemwide measures include the Illinois Community College Board reporting enrollment in dual credit courses and the change in earnings pre- and post-completion.

using informationSimply making information available does not, in and of itself, constitute a well-functioning

accountability system. Measurement is only step one; step two is making the information that comes from measurement meaningful. There are different ways to do this, but they’re all variations on a theme: injecting information about quality into existing processes that college decision-makers care about. These processes can be grouped into three areas: governance and strategic planning, funding, and transparency and markets.

Governance and Strategic PlanningIllinois’ December 2008 Public Agenda for College and Career Success features four primary goals,

each with one to three recommendations. Goals include things like, “increase educational attainment to match best-performing U.S. states and world countries,” and “ensure college affordability for students, families, and taxpayers.” Recommendations include, “reduce geographic disparities in educational attainment,” and “make Illinois one of the five most affordable states in the country measured in terms of a) the percentage of family income required to pay net cost of attendance for low- and middle-income families, and b) the average amount of debt per undergraduate student.” The most recent round of institutional performance goals come from a suspended performance measurement system that included goals that were often weak and/or vague. For instance, Illinois College, an independent institution in Jacksonville, Ill., set a goal to “improve annually the employment rate and the graduate school attendance rate of IC graduates,” even though 100 percent of its 2005 respondents indicated they were employed or attending graduate school already. They were frequently non-specific, such as one for Chicago State University, a public four-year institution in Chicago, that read, “The goal is to continue to provide excellent career preparation in a campus atmosphere that fosters critical thinking, ethical practice, and active citizenship.”

FundingIllinois does not appear to use any sort of performance budgeting, instead opting for

information as the mechanism to hold colleges accountable. This task is managed through an “information systems” responsibility, whereby the board must “establish a system of comprehensive, meaningful, and timely information about higher education.”

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Transparency and MarketsThe Illinois Board of Higher Education’s information geared toward students and parents is minimal and

general, of the “FAQ about College” and “Why More Education?” variety. It does not feature accountability information about individual Illinois colleges or universities.

accountaBiLity documents illinois Board of Higher education

a Public agenda for college and career successhttp://www.ibhe.org/masterPlanning/materials/010909_PublicAgenda.pdf

iBHe 2011: a strategic Plan for the illinois Board of Higher educationhttp://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Board/agendas/2007/October/Item11.pdf

annual report 2007–08http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Media%20Center/misc/2008AnnualReport.pdf

data Book 2008http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Data%20Bank/DataBook/default.asp

2006 Performance reporthttp://www.ibhe.state.il.us/PerformanceIndicators/PerfReport/2006/default.asp

employer satisfaction With Higher education in illinoishttp://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Board/agendas/2006/April/Item14.pdf

2006–07 faculty credit Hour study for illinois Public universitieshttp://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Data%20Bank/costStudies/default.asp

2006–07 academic discipline unit cost studyhttp://www.ibhe.state.il.us/data%20bank/coststudies/default.asp

illinois community college system accountability and Productivity in the community college system, december 2006http://www.iccb.org/pdf/reports/06acctrpt.pdf

data and characteristics of the Public community college systemhttp://www.iccb.org/pdf/reports/databook2008.pdf

Performance report for fiscal year 2007http://www.iccb.org/pdf/reports/databook2008.pdf

the economic impact of illinois community collegeshttp://www.iccb.org/pdf/reports/EconomicImpact2007.pdf

endnotes1 “Almanac Issue 2008–9.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Volume 55, Issue 1.