By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed into law a pair of bills aimed at curbing Illinois’ brain drain that’s resulted in sharp enrollment declines at the state’s public universities and community colleges.

Enrollment dropped by 50,000 students during a 23 year period ending in 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Over a five-year span ending in 2016, enrollment declined by about 5,127 students, or a little more than eight percent at the state’s public universities.

‘AIM-High’ legislation earmarks $25 million in the current state budget, matched by the universities, to fund scholarships to keep the best and brightest here, according to Illinois Board of Higher Education President Al Bowman.

“It’s the first statewide merit scholarship program we’ve had in many years,” said Bowman, who’s a former president of Illinois State University.

“I think it will benefit a large number of students,” Bowman said.

The other bill, according to Rauner, sets up a task force to coordinate information sharing between high schools and colleges.

The task force will “figure out how to coordinate high schools and high school students’ career interests, technical interests, major interests, and communicate that and coordinate that with our community colleges and our universities so our higher ed institutions can anticipate what’s coming from the high school class,” said Rauner.

“The goal of the bills is designed to be a direct shot across the bow of all these out of state schools that are coming in here and taking our best and our brightest, who are coming here and are out recruiting our high schools’ graduating senior class,” said Republican State Sen. Chapin Rose of Mahomet, who helped guide the bills toward passage.

“We want those kids in Illinois,” Rose added.

Republican State Representative Dan Brady of Bloomington also sponsored the bills.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]