Increased funding for higher education is crucial if NIU is to fulfill its mission as a “modern land grant university” in the future, NIU President John LaTourette reiterated in his state of the university address last Thursday.

LaTourette said poor state support for higher education has damaged universities’ ability to “make a critical difference in the economic, social and cultural vitality” of Illinois. He said studies have shown that universities should be able to create an educated workforce, enable the establishment of new forms of business and support scientific and technological advancement.

Inadequate funding also might impede NIU’s performance as a “modern land grant university,” LaTourette said. Such a university makes its teaching, research and professional expertise available to the public. LaTourette said that NIU has been successful in building a reputation for sharing its educational resources with the public in the past.

He said the June failure of a tax proposal in the Illinois General Assembly, which would have provided an increase of more than $200 million for higher education in fiscal year 1989, was a major setback. As a result, the legislature only was able to approve $65 million in new funds.

“I do not think that any more could have been done to build public support for a tax increase, but public support is not enough. We must have political support as well,” LaTourette told the assembly of more than 200 people in the Holmes Student Center’s Carl Sandburg Auditorium.

The effects of the tax increase’s failure, he said, are continued double-digit increases in tuition and expanded efforts to find new funding sources.

“For years, the Illinois Board of Higher Education took the view that students should pay approximately one-third of the cost of instruction, and for years tuition was in fact considerably below that level. Last year, tuition was 38 percent of the cost of instruction at the undergraduate level, and the figure will surely be over 40 percent when our Board (of Regents) is forced to raise tuition in September to meet unavoidable cost increases,” LaTourette said.

The university’s dire financial situation also will speed up the reduction of NIU’s total undergraduate enrollment, which was initiated last year.

LaTourette said that dwindling financial resources forced NIU administration to decide even before the tax increase failure to decrease enrollment by 1,000 students, from 18,500 to 17,500, within five years. He said NIU “will achieve most of the decrease” by the fall of 1989.

In his speech LaTourette cited statistics which showed Illinois tied with West Virginia for last place in the nation in providing increased state tax-dollar support for higher education during the last 10 years. The cumulative increase for Illinois and West Virginia was 71 percent, while the national average was 121 percent. LaTourette said this is particularly discouraging because Illinois has the 10th highest per capita income in the country and a 1986 gross state product of $222 billion.

In his address, LaTourette also responded to an Aug. 24 letter to the Chicago Tribune in which Illinois Auditor General Robert Cronson criticized a July 10 opinion article by LaTourette, which also appeared in the Tribune.

Cronson was critical of LaTourette’s proposals for financing universities, such as through more local controls, and the establishment of NIU’s engineering program.

LaTourette said Cronson “can be answered on every point he raises, and I intend to answer him.”