Report offers mixed review of educational progress in Illinois

Students do math problems at an elementary school in Springfield. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Campbell)

SPRINGFIELD — A new report about education in Illinois suggests that overall, the state has made significant progress in key areas, from readying toddlers for kindergarten to helping young adults earn college degrees or industry certificates before entering the workforce.

But it also shows that despite billions of dollars in additional spending on K-12 education, proficiency rates in reading, writing and math have stagnated, and in some cases have declined, a fact that mirrors national trends.

Those findings are reported in the 2025 edition of “The State We’re In,” a biennial project of the nonpartisan research and advocacy group Advance Illinois.

The report looks at measurements across the entire spectrum of education, from birth through college and professional school. It examines inputs such as staffing and funding, as well as outcomes like proficiency rates and overall educational attainment.

Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, said in an interview that while there is significant cause for concern in some areas, “overall educational attainment in Illinois continues to move in the right direction, and it does so for every single group.”

Higher education attainment

In 2009, state lawmakers established the Illinois P-20 Council to bring together multiple state agencies, educational institutions, local schools, community groups, employers and citizens to identify needed reforms and make recommendations for improving the quality of education in the state.

The “P” stands for preschool and “20” refers to grade 20, or education after college.

The following year, the council put forth a goal that within the next 15 years, by 2025, 60% of Illinois’ adult population would have either a high-quality degree or industry credentials.

According to this year’s report, Illinois appears to have fallen just short of meeting that goal.

The report cites 2023 census data showing 49% of adults in the state held an associate’s, bachelor’s or professional degree, up from 41% in 2010. The total with either a postsecondary degree or industry certificate in 2023 was estimated at 57.4%.

“We wanted to get to 60,” Steans said. “We didn’t quite get there, but that’s real progress in the amount of time in the last decade. What I like about it is that not only are we seeing higher attainment levels, not only has that been steady, but it has been across all groups.”

The report did note that college attainment rates grew across the board from 2010 to 2023, including among Black and Hispanic residents, but racial gaps persisted. By 2023, 37% of Black adults and 28% of Hispanic adults held an associate’s or higher degree compared to 54% of white adults.

At the same time, however, the report also noted that postsecondary enrollment has been declining in Illinois, suggesting the possibility that the number of graduates is unlikely to grow in the future. Part of that, but not all, is due to declining birth rates, the report said.

Postsecondary enrollment in Illinois peaked in 2010, at just over 1 million students. By 2023, that number had fallen 28%, to about 774,000. Over that same period, the percentage of high school students enrolling in college within 16 months of graduation dropped from 71% to 66.8%.

One of the main factors driving the drop in enrollment, the report states, is affordability. Average tuition and fees at a four-year public institution in Illinois costs about 19% of a median household’s annual income, which ranks Illinois 46^th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., on the affordability scale.

The relatively high tuition costs in Illinois are largely the result of low state support. In 2023, Illinois’ funding of public universities and community colleges came to $2,446 per student, ranking 48^th in the nation.

During the 2025 spring legislative session, Advance Illinois pushed for legislation to overhaul the state’s higher education funding system, putting universities on a formula-based funding system similar to the way the state now funds K-12 school districts. Although that legislation stalled in the spring session, Steans said the organization would continue to push for it in the months ahead.

“We are a thousand percent going to continue to push for that,” she said. “It is absolutely essential.”

K-12 achievement

In 2017, Illinois lawmakers overhauled the way the state funds K-12 education, enacting what’s known as the Evidence-Based Funding formula, or EBF. That plan lays out a formula for determining an “adequate” level of funding for each school district.

It also calls for the state to add at least $350 million in new spending each year for public schools, with the bulk of that money directed to the districts furthest away from their adequacy target.

The money is used to pay for things that have been shown to improve educational outcomes, such as reduced class sizes and hiring support staff. Part of that money is also earmarked for property tax relief in high-tax districts.

As a result of that law, the state now allocates $2.8 billion more to the EBF each year than when it was first enacted. And according to the report, that new money has produced benefits, especially for those districts that were the most underfunded.

“One of the things that’s showing up in the data is that those districts that were deeply underfunded and severely understaffed are adding teachers, adding counselors, adding social workers,” Steans said. “It’s good that they’re in a position to do that.”

In 2019, according to the report, state per-pupil spending for K-12 education averaged $7,727, ranking 23^rd in the nation. By 2023, spending had grown to $9,202, ranking 18^th nationally.

But the extent to which the money has helped improve educational outcomes is less certain.

Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP exam — also known as the Nation’s Report Card — the report shows there has been little improvement in students’ essential skills in English language arts and math.

In 2024, the most recent year those tests were administered, roughly a third of the state’s fourth and eighth graders scored at or above proficiency in reading and math, a rate that has changed little over the previous 20 years.

Steans, however, said there is a silver lining in that trend line. While proficiency rates in Illinois have remained flat, they have also flattened out or even declined in other states, which has had the effect of boosting Illinois’ national ranking.

“By holding steady, we are now doing much better than most other states,” Steans said.

She said Illinois students demonstrate solid growth as they progress through school.

“Between third and eighth grade, you want to show five years of academic progress, at least,” she said. “We have typically beat that five years, and we’re typically in the top 10 performing states. We’re now second and third in the nation in reading and math for the growth that we’re getting between third and eighth grade.”

Steans said one of the factors behind the flat trend lines in Illinois and nationally has been the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced schools to close for months on end and resulted in significant learning loss for many students.

“Those disruptions took a toll,” she said. “I think my biggest fear with this, the biggest reminder, is we want to think we’re just back to normal. ‘Why are we even talking about that anymore?’ And we’re talking about it because there is still an impact that our students are experiencing and that we still owe them support to get over.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 

Report offers mixed review of educational progress in Illinois by Peter Hancock