Chicago Tribune - January 18, 2008
Jodi S. Cohen

Their latest plea comes after several years of unsuccessful attempts to lobby state leaders, including a public awareness campaign.

University leaders also plan to request a permanent state funding increase of $50 million a year, beginning in 2013, as well as $10 million to expand and renovate the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center.

The request comes despite state subsidies in the past decade for a new outpatient center and a research building, which opened in 2005.

"We don't want to come off as ungrateful," said Joseph Flaherty, dean of the College of Medicine, the country's largest medical school. "We are not just sitting here waiting for the state. We are out there hustling [for private funds], developing research and intellectual property."

University officials portrayed a dire situation that will grow worse without new funding: Tuition will continue to rise, they said, driving up graduates' debt and pushing them toward lucrative specialties instead of working with the poor.

Faculty will go elsewhere for better pay. Labs and other teaching facilities will erode. That, in turn, would cause patient care to suffer.

"Training health professionals is a very expensive business, much more expensive than training a chemist," said UIC interim chancellor Eric Gislason.

The state currently contributes about $106 million in subsidies for UIC's health sciences colleges: medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health and applied health sciences. It provides an additional $118 million for the medical center.

The UIC Medical Center treats 600,000 patients a year, many of them poor. The College of Dentistry, one of two dental schools in the state, already has announced plans to cut 15 faculty and staff and close a clinic that treats patients with HIV and AIDS.

"We cannot ignore this any longer," said UIC trustee Kenneth Schmidt, a radiologist. "The alternative is unacceptable, irresponsible. If you look at care for the poor, it is absolutely immoral."

Schmidt argued the medical and dental schools cannot solve their funding problems by continuing to raise tuition. At $28,181, the medical school's tuition is the highest of any Big 10 universities that receive state aid. UIC medical school students graduate with an average debt of $148,000, while dental students have $161,000 in debt, university officials said.

Carrie Hightman, executive director of the Illinois Board of Education, said UIC's funding request would "go into the mix" as the board considers the state's higher education priorities.

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