Illinois law provides students with same tuition rate each year

URBANA, Ill. -- Incoming freshmen at public universities can be sure they'll pay the same tuition each year until graduation under a law Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed Tuesday.

The new "truth-in-tuition" law locks in tuition rates for students for four consecutive years, or five years for specialized fields that require the extra training.

The law is designed to give more predictability for families preparing to spend thousands of dollars on their children's public university education in Illinois.

"The tuition a student and his or her family pays as a freshman ought to be the tuition that student pays as a senior," Blagojevich said at a bill signing on the University of Illinois' Urbana campus. "By holding the line on college tuitions, we can give families a way to budget, a way to plan, a way to save and a way to make sure their children receive the education they are entitled to."

To help deal with a $5 billion state budget deficit, the Chicago Democrat forced universities to cut spending by $112 million this year. The new tuition freeze and future cuts could further strap the schools' budgets, but Blagojevich said those issues will be dealt with as they come up.

"This is a fluid situation, and we'll just keep analyzing this on a year-by-year basis," Blagojevich said.

Blagojevich also signed into law a measure requiring public universities to provide more detail about the money they receive and how they spend it.

The law makes universities spell out money for spending items, such as travel and equipment, and requires them to report their spending to the legislature each year. That should help officials spot and reduce unnecessary expenses and bureaucracy, the governor said.

"This is a kind of detailed examination that will help us find waste to use the taxpayers' money more efficiently," Blagojevich said. "It's the kind of accountability the public deserves."

Tuesday was the second day of the governor's three-day, 13-county bus tour along the state's eastern border.

He also shook hands with residents in Tuscola and Greenup, signed an education spending bill into law in Windsor and announced the expansion of a farm store in Mattoon.