NIU officials are tight-lipped about a news conference tonight where NIU is expected to announce a branch campus in Hoffman Estates.

The campus is reportedly enhanced with incentives from Sears Roebuck and Co. and Hoffman Estates.

However, the expected decision has strewn sour grapes throughout the higher education community. NIU, Sears and Hoffman Estates officials would neither confirm nor deny the plans.

Officials from the University of Illinois, the Board of Governors and Roosevelt University, which has 2,500 students at its Robin Campus in Arlington Heights, are concerned NIU did not say anything of the plans, and wondered if the move will duplicate classes already offered in the area.

Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, one of five schools under the Board of Governors’ jurisdiction, is participating in a study of higher education needs in the northwest suburbs.

However, The Daily Herald reported that officials from Elgin Community College would support the satellite campus if more degree completion programs are needed in the area.

A statement released Friday from NIU President John La Tourette stated, “We understand there is a press conference on this topic Monday and it would be inappropriate for anyone to comment before that time.”

The 7:30 p.m. news conference in the Hoffman Estates Village Hall comes about two weeks after the Illinois Board of Higher Education gave NIU the green light to open a branch campus in Rockford.

Also, the Hoffman Estates project exemplifies the feeling of higher education and its competition for students while renewing calls for the IBHE to form guidelines on how that competition should be played.

The expected Hoffman Estates addition will most likely be geared toward graduate, post-graduate, junior- and senior-level students.

Sears and Hoffman Estates are expected to donate land for the buildings. However, funding for construction and maintenance, as well as staffing costs, have yet to be answered.