A disproportionate amount of tuition waivers was granted to NIU athletes last year. Student athletes, who make up about 1.7 percent of the entire student body, received 24 percent of the total amount of tuition waivers granted by NIU.

According to an Illinois Board of Higher Education report, NIU granted 158 tuition waivers last year to NIU athletics, 24 percent of the total number of waivers granted by NIU during he 1991-1992 academic year.

The value of the tuition waivers granted by the department of athletics was $269,200, according to the IBHE report.

According to NIU sports information, there were about 407 students on team rosters in athletics last year. That means nearly 39 percent of the those athletes’ tuition was waived.

The IBHE allows public universities to grant tuition waivers equal to three percent of the total amount of tuition that would be taken in if all students paid full tuition.

The IBHE report states, “There are no state policies that establish specific statewide priorities or guidelines to institutions to determine the use of tuition waivers within the 3 percent limitation.”

NIU received a negative adjustment to its IBHE-recommended budget appropriation for next year because NIU exceeded the three-percent guideline last year.

According to the IBHE, $50,400 was subtracted from NIU’s budget recommendation for next year because the dollar value of the waivers granted by NIU exceeded the IBHE guideline by that amount.

The IBHE report on intercollegiate athletics lists tuition waivers as one of three various sources of state support for intercollegiate athletics.

The report says tuition waivers serve as a form of state funding because they represent tuition dollars not paid to the state. The report also cites state-appropriated tax dollars and mandatory student fees for athletics that are reimbursed by state financial aid as additional forms of state funding.

NIU President John La Tourette announced last fall that NIU athletics would lose state tax dollars that are being reallocated toward academic instruction.

Even if intercollegiate athletics had no state general revenue funding last year, $269,000 in indirect funding came from tuition waivers and approximately $301,600 came from student fees which the state reimbursed.

In other words, approximately $570,600 came from these two sources of indirect state funding alone for intercollegiate athletics.

The IBHE report concludes, “Illinois public universities should consider various productivity improvements to assure that they are offering high quality, cost-effective intercollegiate athletics programs.”

The report also says, “Each institution also should examine the relationship of its intercollegiate athletic program to its mission and other institutional needs and priorities.”

Similar recommendations were made by the IBHE to universities in regards to the productivity, cost-effectiveness and quality of academic programs under the Priority, Quality and Productivity initiative.

Under the PQP initiative, the IBHE evaluated the academic programs at universities using primarily the same criteria it is recommending be used in the evaluation of intercollegiate athletics.

After the IBHE completed its evaluation of university academic programs using this same type of criteria, the IBHE recommended the elimination of 15 graduate programs at NIU, including the law school. NIU intercollegiate athletics may be subject to similar evaluation by the IBHE next fall.

The IBHE has asked the state public universities to submit their evaluations of intercollegiate athletics programs in their October 1993 Productivity reports to the IBHE.