By Illinois Radio Network

SPRINGFIELD – It’s no surprise to the people who work at Illinois’ public universities that most employees don’t teach. But as thousands of young people head back to class this month, it may surprise parents and students where their tuition dollars are going.

At the University of Illinois, 27 percent of the school’s 17,000 employees are faculty members, and that’s not out of place.

At ISU, two-thirds of employees aren’t in a classroom. It’s also fewer than half at Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois, and Southern Illinois universities.

State Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, said parents and students should know that most of their tuition dollars aren’t going to professors, and very little of the recent tax increase will go to classrooms either.

“We need to cut administrative costs at colleges,” McSweeny said. “We need to cut administrative costs in K-12 school. We need to spend more money in the classroom. But what we also need is fundamental reform in how we spend money in the state. And that means we need to cut spending.”

Most of the non-faculty employees on a college campus are civil service workers, everything from secretaries to janitors and administrators. A 2015 study from the legislature showed administrative spending is what drove college spending increases between 2001 and 2011.

That is why McSweeny said lawmakers who voted for the recent 32 percent state income tax increase in an attempt to “save their university” didn’t do anything for students and parents paying tuition.

“If saving universities means they are going to pay bureaucrats, and administrative expenses, and pay big salaries to university presidents and raise taxes on everybody else,” McSweeny added, “that shows what an absolute outrage that tax increase really is.”