In his State of the University Address Thursday, NIU President John Peters discussed a lack of financial support for NIU from the federal government. However, he did not comment on the possibility of faculty layoffs.

Sue Willis, president of the Faculty Senate, said if NIU has to lay people off, the first course of action would be to lay off people in the administration and staff who are not directly related to instruction.

The lack of government funding could, however, lead to forcing enrollment limitations, Peters said. This would allow the university to accommodate its students with the best possible experience at NIU.

“We will not sacrifice educational quality,” he said. “That is too much to ask from a public university.”

Willis said that, in general, federal support is declining.

“Pretty much everybody is in a mess,” she said.

Peters said that could be attributed to the notion that higher education is viewed as a commodity. He said in many respects, college-educated students have become victims of their own successes.

“We’ve done such a great job of educating the citizenry and emphasizing the financial value attached to a college education that it has, in some respects, become a commodity,” Peters said.

Willis said that a college degree isn’t as highly regarded as it used to be.

“People take college degrees for granted,” she said.

However, that hasn’t stopped potential students from applying to NIU.

Comparing numbers to this time last year, Peters said the amount of freshman applicants is up about 54 percent, which comes to about 700 more applications.

Peters referred to a “tidal wave” of new students that will enter the system of higher education over the next decade. If NIU’s current admissions standards and retention rates stay the same, in five years, the student population could reach about 30,000.

Nationwide, the number of traditional-age college students is expected to increase about 15 percent over the next decade, Peters said.

Peters said the number of non-traditional students also is on the rise.

“By 2010, 50 percent of all college students will be working adults over the age of 25,” he said.

Peters tied this into a concept of “no adult left behind.”

With the state of the current economy, many adults have lost their jobs and have returned to higher education for retraining or training for a new job, he said.

However, even with the current problems the university is facing, there are many positive things happening at NIU, Peters said.

He talked about what he considered to be great accomplishments, such as NIU being ranked No. 1 in giving blacks education doctorates.

NIU’s College of Engineering has gotten funding this year to help scientists study fuel cell technology in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory, as well as money for a Rockford-based manufacturing research initiative, Peters said.

The College of Engineering also will receive money this year from the U.S. Department of Defense – “one having to do with advanced vehicle manufacturing, and the other with what is known as microfabrication,” he said.