But that’s exactly what happened late Friday night when the NEA sent letters to a variety of grantees informing them their grants were being nixed. The after-hours emails, sent from inboxes unwilling to accept replies, followed the release of Trump’s budget Friday, wherein he proposed defunding the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities, two entities he long has targeted. (Trump also issued an executive order late Thursday cutting off federal funding for NPR and PBS, claiming ideological bias. Court challenges are underway.)

In the case of the NEA on Friday night, theaters and other arts groups were told their grants no longer aligned with NEA priorities and were being either rescinded or immediately terminated, depending on the circumstances. Many affected groups contacted reporters and took to social media. In one example, the Portland Playhouse in Oregon said it had received a email from the endowment on the very eve of its opening a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” theoretically with $25,000 already promised from the NEA.

Let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that Trump is within his executive rights as duly elected president to change the “priorities” of the NEA, although the new NEA criteria listed in the emails we’ve been shown are bizarre indeed, even including “fostering A.I. competency,” which sure as heck is not why we attend the live arts in Chicago.

Even if they sought change or elimination, any decent president would honor previous commitments, not rescind the funding when the recipient already was in a hole dug in good faith. Trump could have started his new vision, if that’s the word, with the next funding cycle, if there is to be any funding cycle. He did not have to destroy the trusted word of an agency long known for empathetic staffers. And let’s add here that, in the world of DOGE, $25,000 is not exactly a massive amount of money. The NEA hasn’t been a major source of arts funding for years. On the one hand, that means its actions aren’t likely to be catastrophic for most grantees. On the other, it makes these actions seem all the more cruel and petty.

Perhaps that was Trump’s point. If so, it’s un-American, unbecoming to his office and, frankly, pathetic.

We’re aware many nonprofit constituencies are in the same unmoored boat as arts groups, but Friday night’s actions were especially sleazy and egregious. At a bare minimum, Trump should direct the NEA to deliver the previously promised checks for projects already underway. And whatever they think of these agencies and their priorities, Republicans in Congress should ensure these matters get a full and fair debate in the light of day.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

The federal “balance of payments” shows how much in taxes a state contributes to the U.S. Treasury and how much it gets back in federal spending. For years, Illinois was a “donor state,” paying into the treasury’s coffers more than it got back.

Federal pandemic relief temporarily changed the balance, meaning Illinois came out ahead. Today, Illinois is well on its way to becoming one of Uncle Sam’s piggy banks again.

The transition could be especially punishing as President Donald Trump targets perceived enemies in blue states like Illinois, and a GOP-controlled Congress maps out spending cuts in the weeks ahead.

Trump’s first 100 days in office brought an unprecedented effort to freeze or eliminate federal funding. While many of those moves have fallen equally among the states, the Trump administration has shown a penchant for discriminating against those that supported rival Kamala Harris in the November election.

Case in point: The administration moved in April to close five of 10 regional offices of the Department of Health and Human Services, targeting Chicago and four other cities in blue states. Coincidence? Not so much. Similarly, Trump has attacked federal programs that flourished in blue states to combat climate change and promote diversity, equity and inclusion, resulting in cuts at Chicago’s Environmental Protection Agency office, for instance.

Trump has vowed to withhold funding for public education and other essentials if sanctuary cities like Chicago continue to try to stop immigrants without legal status from being rounded up and deported. And in recent weeks, under the pretext of fighting antisemitism, Trump threatened a handful of elite universities with the loss of federal funds, all in blue states, including Evanston’s Northwestern University. The effort has since expanded to include red-state universities, but the administration’s biases are clear.

Beyond Trump’s efforts to withhold funding, Republicans in Congress swiftly approved a massive tax cut this year, and now they’re undertaking the much harder work to slash spending accordingly. While some programs that benefit Illinois are safe under the GOP, like federal aid for farmers, safety net programs that expanded during COVID-19 are on the block.

Sharp cuts in Medicaid, which provides health insurance for millions of children and other low-income residents, would fall especially hard on states like Illinois with high enrollment rates. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also faces cuts from GOP lawmakers. About 2 million Illinois residents rely on SNAP food-stamp benefits.

On the revenue side, a dozen or so Republican lawmakers from high-tax blue states are pushing to raise the $10,000 cap on federal deductions for state and local taxes imposed in the first Trump tax plan of 2017. We’re on that side too, as a matter of simple fairness, especially given the punishing, ever-rising property tax bills faced by homeowners in Illinois. We think a reasonable cap would be $50,000.  But other Republicans see this as subsidizing the tax-and-spend proclivities of blue states and many Democrats don’t like helping the upper-middle class, so the so-called SALT deduction has plenty of enemies.

The upshot, from a fiscal standpoint: Illinois will continue funding the federal government with relatively high contributions of tax dollars while a smaller share of federal spending will flow back to the state than in recent years.

As recently as 2019, Illinois similarly paid in more than it got back. The blue states of California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York were in the same position that year as well, while the 44 other states got more in federal funds than their taxpayers contributed.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, a massive increase in federal aid meant that no states were paying more than they received. Deficit spending ballooned, first under Trump, then under President Joe Biden. We all paid the price in inflation.

Over the following three years, federal dollars coming into Illinois exceeded its federal tax contributions, according to the New York State Comptroller’s Office, which ranks the balance of payments for all 50 states.

The calculation for 2024 isn’t available yet, but for 2025, Illinois can expect a return to deficits, spreading pain across the state. Factor in Trump’s trade war, which is expected to raise prices and reduce growth, and even if the nation avoids a recession, Illinois may well feel like it’s in one.

How to prepare? Financial experts suggest building up emergency funds to cover several months of living expenses. It’s also a good idea to pay down debt, if possible, or to contact creditors for hardship concessions. Challenging times mean taking stock of job opportunities and developing a backup plan in case of a layoff.

As for fighting the Trump pressure campaign, even politicians as ambitious as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are mostly left to file lawsuits — and fulminate. Pritzker recently urged his fellow Democrats to take their fight against Trump to the streets and to congressional offices, calling for “mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption.”

Logically, if he’s asking others to “disrupt” the Trump administration, potentially at some personal risk, the governor must be wanting to do some disrupting himself.

In theory, Illinois could protest by refusing to send tax dollars it collects from state employees to the federal government. It could require local municipalities to follow suit. Unlawful? Very likely, as are some of the steps Trump has taken in his first 100 days.

Don’t do it, Governor. The Constitution obligates our national government to allocate resources fairly among the states and, even if a president abuses that compact, responsible leaders still must keep the faith and set the right example.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Here’s the legitimate concern. The United States’ total fertility rate — which estimates the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime — fell to 1.62 in 2023, significantly below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population.

When a population begins to shrink, it defies the fundamental models of how societies grow and prosper. Growth signals strength and vitality; decline signals weakness and decay. Once growth stops, it can set off a downward spiral that’s hard — or even impossible — to reverse.

The U.S. fertility rate has steadily dropped over the past 15 years, hitting record lows in recent years. There’s a lot that factors into this phenomenon. Baby Boomers, a historically large generation, are dying off. COVID-19 brought a notable dip in lawful immigration rates, which have typically bolstered our population. Without new Americans, the Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S. population would begin to shrink by 2033, due to persistently low fertility rates.

So declining fertility rates certainly have broader implications for the U.S. Which brings up the question: Why are people having fewer babies? 

In our opinion, one of the biggest — and most misunderstood — factors in this debate, is that it’s become prohibitively expensive to start a family.  So as U.S. policymakers try to gin up another baby boom, they should ask themselves: Are the conditions right for women to want to have more kids?

The decision to have them is as much an act of love and good fortune as it is a calculation.

Consider: Raising a child to age 17 costs an estimated $310,605 for a middle-class family, according to the Brookings Institution. Housing is the largest expense, followed by child care, transportation and food. That total doesn’t even include college tuition, which, as we’ve written repeatedly, has grown prohibitively expensive. No wonder one recent survey showed that about a third of Americans aren’t planning to start a family because it’s too expensive.

That’s why we’re skeptical of increasingly aggressive campaigns from high-profile political figures urging Americans to have more kids — and to do so quickly.

Musk, the brilliant, controversial billionaire with 14 children by four women (assuming that’s all), is among the most vocal pronatalists. At a rally last October, he urged Americans to “just have kids,” insisting “it’ll work out.” But while Musk warns of a declining America, he ignores the reality that it’s not that simple for regular people. 

Some of the policy ideas floating around to spur another baby boom oversimplify the problem and ignore the realities facing modern families. It’s not just the upfront cost of pregnancy and childbirth that deters people from starting a family — it’s more often the belief that choosing this option is not financially viable in the long run.

The Trump administration has proposed a $5,000 “baby bonus” for first-time mothers. (Remember, the estimated cost of raising a child to age 17 is over $300,000.) A $5,000 check for each new mom would cost the government plenty, but wouldn’t go incredibly far, potentially covering just several months worth of day care. Paid family leave is another idea floating around, and state lawmakers have introduced their own proposal to create a paid family leave program funded by a jobs tax. President Donald Trump also issued an executive order in February to explore ways to reduce the out-of-pocket costs of IVF.

The good news is that politicians are thinking about ways to make pregnancy and the postpartum period more doable. But these proposals often feel like well-meaning but shallow gestures — such as buying a child a shiny new toy while ignoring their need for food and shelter.

The real deterrents to starting a family are deeply embedded in how young Americans live, work and plan for the future.

Many men and women want children. The reality is that millennials and Gen Z are delaying marriage and childbearing due to economic uncertainty, student debt, housing costs and shifting social norms.

Americans are marrying later than ever. In 1950, the median age at marriage was 20 for women and 23 for men. Today, it’s nearly 29 and 30, respectively. That shift reflects rising education and career investment, especially among women, as well as cultural changes in dating and expectations for financial security.

That’s triggered a much trickier — and tougher — path to parenthood for many couples. Women are having babies later in life than ever before. In 1970, the average American woman was almost 21 years old when she had her first baby. Today, the average age of first-time moms is over 27. This isn’t surprising, given that women now earn the majority of college degrees in the U.S. and are increasingly prioritizing career stability before starting a family. But pregnancies later in life come with costs and challenges of their own. 

Couples trying for kids in their late 30s and 40s are increasingly turning to hormonal treatments and IVF, both costly prospects often not covered by insurance. Over 40% of adults say they have used fertility treatments or know someone who has, a 33% increase from just five years earlier, according to Pew Research Center.

Pregnancy is hard on the body, and that stress increases with age. Blood volume spikes, weight gain strains joints and everyday activities become taxing. Still, many women work until delivery, then return to work just weeks later — often because paid leave is limited. Full recovery can take a year, yet most new mothers take approximately 10 weeks of leave.

All of these things considered, the current situation isn’t surprising. 

If we’re facing an existential crisis as our fertility rate declines, we’re hardly alone. Many countries are in the same boat. Italy, for example, has an even lower fertility rate than the U.S. A few parts of the world — especially sub-Saharan Africa, as well as countries such as Afghanistan and Yemen — still have high fertility rates.

Longtime readers know we also believe in the liberty of the individual. That includes following your own path.

For many, that includes parenthood. Others lead equally meaningful lives without becoming parents. And while we are, like Musk, closely watching population trends, we believe the conversation requires deep introspection on what’s driving down the fertility rate. It’s not as simple as dangling cash at people and hoping they get pregnant. 

This board is made up of parents who love their children. Having them was the greatest blessing of our lives. But parenthood isn’t the only path to meaning. As rhetoric about fertility rates escalates, it’s worth remembering that every person’s choices are valid, whether or not they have kids.

But let’s be clear: We should be doing everything we can to remove artificial barriers that prevent people who want a family from having children.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

We’ve collectively rented a lot of Chicago places and can tell you that it was not always easy to get that entire deposit returned, but that we almost always got a hefty percentage of it back. Landlords will tell you that many tenants damage some aspect of their apartment and that docking the deposit to pay for, say, a paint and patching job is only reasonable.

These days, security deposits have gone the way of the paper lease. In their place have arisen “move-in fees,” which are cash payments of up to $1,000 demanded by landlords before tenants move in.

What’s the difference? A security deposit got returned to you, all being well. Landlords take and keep the entire move-in fee. Nothing is returned, even if you hire your own painter and cleaner (as we have done) and leave the place spotless.

What happened? The city of Chicago created such onerous regulations surrounding security deposits in its Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance that most landlords gave up on them. The issue isn’t so much that security deposits must be kept in a separate account at a “federally insured financial institution in Illinois” and not commingled with rent; that’s not terribly burdensome. Nor is the requirement that deposits be returned within 45 days, which seems to us necessary to prevent bad actors. It’s the ease with which lawyers could sue if landlords failed to comply with any tiny aspect of the regulations, even unwittingly, and even if they quickly corrected their clerical mistakes.

Said regulations are all part of a complex system. Mixing up even a tiny portion of the rules opens you up to lawsuits. For example, one rule states that a landlord must give tenants a signed receipt at the time of collecting a security deposit that includes the deposit amount, the date, a description of the unit, and the names of both the person receiving the deposit and the landlord. Seems straightforward, right? Wrong.

Failing to comply with total precision (say, missing a signature or getting a date wrong on the receipt) meant the landlord was on the hook to pay the tenant twice the value of their deposit. Plus interest. Lawyers learned this and trolled for business.

So landlords turned to “move-in fees,” which are not subject to this regulation. Not only do they not have to pay interest on the deposit, they can keep the fee in its entirety. Now tenants are complaining about the growth in such fees, which, they understandably point out, are assessed precisely when renters are on the hook for moving costs and other outlays.

Simply put, refundable security deposits turned into nonrefundable move-in fees because the city’s regulations and penalties became too onerous.

So what to do? Regulate move-in fees? Landlords would just then increase rents.

The problem here was regulatory overreach. Reasonable people understand that landlords incur costs when apartments turn over. But the great thing about security deposits was that they incentivized renters to take care of their places, helpful to both the landlord’s interests and their building and community at large. Move-in fees do no such thing. The money is gone either way, and the renters who take great care of their places are then forced to subsidize those who do the opposite.

We asked Chicago Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda about this situation in an editorial board meeting Thursday. She acknowledged there was a problem and said a working group had been convened to discuss the landlord-tenant relationship and that everything was under review.

Good. Renters need basic protections from landlords running off with their deposits, but such bad actors are a small percentage of property owners. The city should loosen the regulations, fight off the lawyers and incentivize everyone to return to security deposits over move-in fees.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

So it’s curious that Ald. Walter Burnett, chair of the City Council’s Zoning Committee and vice mayor, has been sitting on a zoning application for a massive apartment building planned for a vacant 7-acre lot in River West for almost a year.

The $1.1 billion project seems to be made exactly to order for Mayor Brandon Johnson. Canadian developer Onni Group, which owns multiple commercial and residential towers in Chicago, has proposed three buildings on the site next to what used to be the Chicago Tribune’s Freedom Center and is soon supposed to be Chicago’s long-awaited casino. The project would create more than 2,450 new units, including 490 affordable apartments.

Onni obtained approval from the Chicago Plan Commission last June, teeing up the project for Burnett’s Zoning Committee back then. Since then? Crickets.

What’s apparently behind the delay, according to recent reporting from Crain’s Chicago Business, is that one of Chicago’s most politically powerful unions, Service Employees International Union Local 1, views the zoning approval as leverage to force Onni to make it easier for SEIU to unionize the staff at not just this new project but all of Onni’s residential buildings in Chicago.

The developer has refused to budge and recently moved to bypass Burnett’s committee, which an applicant is allowed to do under zoning rules meant to overcome the opposition of a single alderman to proposals for new affordable housing. Such NIMBY-based opposition — enabled by Chicago’s tradition of aldermanic prerogative, which has given aldermen effective veto power over developments in their wards — is part of the reason Chicago is suffering such a housing shortage.

But Burnett’s blockage isn’t a NIMBY story at all. It’s a new chapter in a different age-old tale in this town — of unions using their influence over local government to boost their membership rolls.

Onni’s audacious move sets up a City Council vote this summer that potentially would force aldermen to choose between risking the displeasure of SEIU, which contributes generously to local campaigns and helps provide organizational muscle as well, and furthering what virtually all these City Council members espouse — building more affordable places to live.

Of course, there is nothing preventing SEIU from attempting to organize workers at Onni’s existing Chicago apartment buildings, which include the three high-rise Old Town Park buildings in Old Town and the 41-story 369 Grand in River North, both high-end projects. What SEIU wants the City Council to do is force Onni into a “labor peace” agreement in which it wouldn’t oppose SEIU’s organizing efforts and would provide contact information for employees to help the union get the job done.

Onni told Crain’s only that it was continuing to “work with the city and all parties.”

We know little else about why Onni opposes union organization of its apartment-building staff in Chicago. The family-owned company is a very large real estate concern, with multiple buildings in Southern California, Vancouver, Phoenix, Toronto and Seattle, in addition to Chicago.

It’s known for having never sold a project it developed since its founding in the late 1950s, according to CoStar.

What we do know is that it’s wrong to attempt to use what should be a relatively routine, uncontroversial action in the City Council to extort a private-sector employer in this way. Chicago may be a “union town,” as many in the City Council would aver, but it should be open to business to any company willing to invest here, whether it’s a union shop or not.

Given its moribund local economy and declining population, Chicago is in no position right now to attempt to throw its weight around with a large-scale player that can and does invest in many other markets.

This is an opportunity for Mayor Johnson to put his money where his mouth is. So far, the mayor has been mum on whether this project should go forward even if SEIU (a major contributor to Johnson’s 2023 campaign) is in opposition. In a wide-ranging meeting we had Thursday with Johnson’s housing commissioner, Lissette Castañeda, she declined to take a side.

Johnson ought to tell his vice mayor, Ald. Burnett, to move this important development forward. If Burnett refuses, aldermen should set aside their political loyalties and do what’s best for Chicago once it comes to the full council for a vote.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Public universities are used to legislatures setting funding levels, and Indiana University just got handed a 5% cut in state funding. So it goes. But what happened last weekend in the final hours of a four-month legislative session went way beyond budgets.

Infuriated critics of the measure have lambasted what occurred as a stealthy power grab. One emeritus professor at Indiana University told the Indianapolis Star that the state had just witnessed a “complete takeover of universities by the governor and state legislature.”

Certainly, Republican legislators exerted new and draconian levels of control over Indiana University by quietly inserting language into a roughly 220-page bill that imposed major changes on the flagship Bloomington campus. The bill, which also affects several other Indiana schools and campuses, first emerged from committee on the evening of April 23 and was the subject of no previous bipartisan discussion. Within 48 hours, it had been passed by the House and Senate.

The language in House Bill 1001 gives the governor total control over the IU board of trustees by repealing the current rights of IU alumni to elect three of its members. Outside of a student member with a shortened term, Republican Gov. Mike Braun will now appoint everyone. But the language hardly confines itself to the Board of Trustees.

It also demands that IU secure state approval for any university degree program that falls below a certain threshold in terms of student enrollment; downgrades faculty governance into a purely advisory role; requires regular reviews of tenured faculty, undermining the notion of tenure; and jettisons emeritus faculty from any meaningful role.

The level of detail is such as to require faculty at IU to post their syllabi on the internet, presumably allowing legislators to scrutinize the content of classes.

Indiana lawmakers have the right to ensure that taxpayer money is being spent wisely, and not all of these ideas are terrible. Most Hoosiers outside of academe would not oppose tenured faculty still being subject to basic performance reviews, as occurs in most other professions. And those with a vested interest in small, costly degree programs should be able to justify their continued existence.

We’re also on board with the idea that some aspects of campus life, such as the absurd proliferation of administrators at the expense of those who actually teach students, need reform. We’ve consistently complained about tuition increases. And we support students being taught by a faculty that has ideological diversity, was hired on the basis of merit and does not squelch free speech in service of politically correct conformity.

But we don’t support a board of trustees entirely made up of the governor’s political patsies (at the University of Michigan, by contrast, voters choose the Board of Regents via biennial elections). Nor burdening academics with endless reports back to a state legislature wherein most members know little about best practices in higher education. Nor a wholesale attack on faculty governance. Nor the expunging of emeritus faculty and alumni from a significant role in how universities like IU decide what to teach and research.

And we worry that some of these Republican legislators are not so much interested in ideological diversity as swapping out one set of political leanings for another. It’s reasonable to require competence from tenured faculty but not to make them fear for their jobs if they take a position with which the legislature disagrees.

A more nuanced approach to reform would have recognized that the student experience and learning outcomes at a state’s flagship school are driven, first and foremost, by that university’s faculty.

To freeze them out in this way and replace them with politicized bureaucrats, ill-qualified to measure research or teaching productivity in arcane fields, is absurd. Plus it may incentivize the school to increase numbers at the expense of quality. And no one in the governor’s office or state legislature should be policing who has or has not adequately “posted” their syllabus and certainly not what it contains, assuming a robust peer and administrative review process is in place.

Guardrails to ensure accountability are fine. But instead of taking over the school in this Orwellian fashion, legislators should have emphasized that they value their leading university’s intellectual independence.

There’s another issue. Big Ten schools like IU compete for faculty talent. Faced with these kinds of restrictions, lots of professors would prefer to work in a friendlier environment. This might be good for the University of Illinois, but this state sends too many kids to IU for this not to be an issue for us.

The most egregious aspect of this whole affair is how major changes were introduced without any kind of meaningful, bipartisan debate or advance exposure to Indiana voters, not to mention parents, current students and potential applicants.

Indiana University matters greatly to Indiana. The school hardly has been a font of left-wing radicalism. Rather than merely signing the bill, as expected, Braun should listen first to stakeholders and the public and temper these excesses.

One test we have for sleazy legislation is how it applies when present parties are no longer in charge. The change regarding gubernatorial control of the Board of Trustees is scheduled to sunset on Jan. 1, 2028, exactly when Braun’s current term would come to an end.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

That’s what the payroll tax being considered in Springfield would do. 

State Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, wants to adopt a state payroll tax to do something that sounds good — cover paid family and medical leave. Called the Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program Act, Villivalam’s legislation would impose a new tax based on a worker’s wages and would be withheld automatically from paychecks, just like Social Security and Medicare. Both the employee and the employer would have to contribute toward this payroll tax.

Last month, the state Senate extended the normal deadline for considering the bill, suggesting there’s some momentum.

Revenue from the program, which would impose a 1.12% tax on paychecks (paid in part by the employee and in part by the employer), would fund benefits in a state-managed paid leave program, giving workers up to 18 weeks of paid family/medical leave each year, plus up to nine extra weeks for pregnancy. The tax would take effect Jan. 1, 2027, for employers with 25 or more workers.

Initially, the tax would apply at companies employing at least 25 people, but by 2029 all employers, no matter how small, would be affected.

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, as with all new taxes, this one is all but sure to rise with time. Consider Minnesota, which is launching its own leave program and payroll tax. In 2023, legislators enacted a 0.7% payroll tax to take effect in 2026. The tax hasn’t even hit employers yet, but lawmakers already have boosted the rate to 0.88% since then.

If times were better in Illinois, a proposal like this might be worth considering, given the struggles new parents face. It’s especially egregious that many women, lacking federal paid leave or job protection, are forced to return to work just a few weeks after giving birth — or risk losing their jobs. But times aren’t good, not for the state’s economy or its finances — which continue to be plagued by $144 billion in pension debt and yearly budget deficits.

There’s already a major jobs issue in Illinois, where private-sector job creation is virtually stagnant. As of the end of last year, Illinois gained a net 32,000 nonfarm jobs since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic. 

But 73% of them were government jobs. That’s not a recipe for a strong economy. 

A state payroll tax would punish businesses for … hiring people, something we desperately need them to do. While intended to help workers afford time off for health and family reasons, it would increase the cost of hiring and maintaining jobs here and expose both employers and employees to future tax hikes if the program runs deficits. 

In other words, it’s possible that the Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program Act could lead to fewer workers around to take advantage of paid leave.

The last thing Illinois should be doing right now is creating new disincentives to hiring.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

The loans, funded by the state, are aimed at kids in school who are tapped out on financial aid and don’t have parents or others who can provide backing for a loan. Without access to private credit, these kids risk having to drop out of school, being already indebted but without the degree to get the kind of job needed to pay off their loans.

So Frerichs’ product is designed to be a cheaper — and safer — alternative for Illinois college students in this kind of situation than trying to find a private lender on their own. Fair enough. This alternative may be helpful for some students.

The option is the latest in a program Frerichs launched two years ago to tap taxpayer money he manages as treasurer for loans to Illinoisans to attend schools in-state, whether private or public. The treasurer’s office tells us they collaborate with outside lenders, who underwrite the loans and take all the risk of defaults with no cost to the state. They pay an interest rate, currently 3%, to the treasurer’s office, providing a fixed return to the state just below the state’s typical return on its bond and fixed-income securities.

For the no-cosigner loan, Frerichs’ office is partnering with Funding U, a for-profit fintech company based in Atlanta. Interest rates range from 7.99% to 9.49% (hefty numbers but not inordinately high at the moment, unfortunately).

If students default, our understanding is that Funding U manages the collection process and, potentially, takes the loss. But this is still a state-sanctioned program and, if only for the sake of optics and trust, Frerichs’ office must guarantee that students are not becoming saddled with (or pressured into) loans of a size they cannot possibly pay back. The state has a moral obligation to do so, given that borrowers will see the treasurer’s name on this program. Student interests have to be protected, as do taxpayers.

Which brings us to the problem of high tuition costs, especially here in Illinois.  The state has tried to address this by providing free tuition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for families at a certain income threshold. Starting next fall, free tuition will be available to households earning $75,000 or less.

We’ve written before about out-of-control college costs. Frerichs’ new program isn’t a solution to unaffordability. It’s a symptom thereof.

In Illinois in particular, college is becoming unaffordable for too many kids who’d like to pursue degrees, and cost is driving our young people out of state. Nearly half of the Illinois high school graduates who go on to college are pursuing degrees out of state, according to research from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Their top six destinations are all in the Midwest: Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Ohio. 

By comparison, IBHE notes that in 2002, just 29% of four-year, college-going high school graduates enrolled outside of Illinois.

Every student who chooses Indiana, Wisconsin or Missouri over Illinois represents not just a lost tuition dollar, but often a long-term economic loss. Many students stay where they study, taking their talents, energy and tax contributions elsewhere. In the long run, Illinois’ refusal to address college affordability is helping to export its future workforce.

A lot of other people are trying to fix the problem, including Gov. JB Pritzker who championed legislation allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees. That innovation has stalled, leaving students fewer affordable choices.

As we’ve said before, increasing the supply of high-quality, four-year degree options is good for everyone except the existing four-year public universities, which is no insignificant caveat.

Still, we like options. More choices for students means schools have to compete for applicants. Competition means providing good programming and keeping costs low for would-be attendees. But the governor’s legislation didn’t advance. 

At private schools such as Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, tuition can be as much as the down payment on a home.

Illinois’ flagship public university — Illinois at Urbana Champaign — is inordinately expensive for Illinoisans themselves, particularly compared with the in-state charges for other Big Ten schools.

In-state tuition at the University of Wisconsin in Madison last year was just $10,006. At Champaign-Urbana, tuition ranged from $18,046 to $23,426 depending on what degree program a student pursued. In-state tuition at Illinois’ flagship university is four times what it was in 2000.

When you factor in housing and food costs, plus books, supplies and other expenses, the total cost is over $40,000 a year. For an in-state student.

All of this often leads to students graduating with tens of thousands in debt. Now imagine one of those students took out loans and majored in communications. The average salary for a class of 2025 communications major is $60,353, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. When you factor in rent, car payments, utilities, food and other basic living expenses, you can see how that money doesn’t go especially far in a city such as Chicago.

It’s no wonder many young people are starting to question the value of a college degree.

Another loan program provides greater access to college financing, but it isn’t going to do anything to tackle the high — and growing — cost of attending college in Illinois. And these high costs are leading to a new generation of students saddled with decades of high-interest debt.

So more financing options are fine. But we need state leaders to focus on making public colleges truly affordable — not forcing vulnerable young people deeper into debt.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Don’t say the mayor and his team are incapable of learning from their mistakes, at least in some instances.

Johnson was traveling to the capital Tuesday prepared to communicate far more modest requests of Pritzker and the state’s Democratic legislative leaders.

The mayor’s ratcheting down of the audacity was an acknowledgement that Springfield is facing its own daunting budget deficit, just as Chicago did last year and will again later this year. The change in approach also tacitly seemed to come from a desire to change the narrative around Johnson’s poor relationship with Pritzker and others in Springfield.

Past mayors and governors understood that it was in their mutual interest to work well together given that the nation’s third largest city is far and away the state’s most important economic driver. As Pritzker has learned firsthand, Chicago’s financial woes quickly become a governor’s own; state revenues flatline, putting ever-increasing pressure on the governor’s budgets.

So while we understand the reasons for the cold shoulder Johnson has gotten in Springfield from members of his own party in the past, we think it would behoove Pritzker and company to do what they can in response to the mayor’s limited requests.

These include state passage of a prepaid cellphone tax plan that has been in the works for a while. Failure to enact that plan late last year cost Chicago about $40 million in 2025, throwing an eleventh-hour wrench into the city’s budget debate. The city also wants the state to extend the existing $5 per month surcharge on wireless phone accounts for 911 service.

Slightly more of a stretch is the city’s ask for higher reimbursement rates for state-mandated public school services like special education, bilingual education and bus transportation.

Governmentally and politically, the remainder of this year is going to feature a series of brutal budgets. First, in just a little over a month the state will have to plug a budget gap that at last report was about $1.7 billion. Then Chicago Public Schools will have to address a deficit of nearly $600 million before the school year starts in August. And, finally, the city of Chicago by the end of the year will confront a deficit projected to exceed $1 billion.

All three of these governmental bodies are constrained by hefty percentages of their budgets going to shore up substantially underfunded pension plans.

So, yes, there’s pain all around, and Johnson’s previous demands of Springfield have been tone-deaf.

But most of the mayor’s asks this spring are reasonable. Pritzker and state lawmakers should do what they can to help Chicago muddle through this difficult period.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Pedro Martinez, who will be exiting his post as CPS CEO in less than two months, filed a remarkable affidavit in Cook County Circuit Court last week that serves as a warning for what’s likely to come after he’s gone. His filing outlined several recent instances in which school board members appointed by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson attempted to gain board approval for policies that were subject to labor negotiations without consulting the CEO, a potential violation of the court order Martinez obtained late last year that bars sidelining the CEO in that way.

What alarmed us most in Martinez’s affidavit, though, was his recounting of an April 14 meeting he had with Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden in which Harden ordered Martinez not to communicate directly with any members of the 21-member board and instead route all messages and reports through Harden. Martinez said he knew of no precedent or authority for Harden’s attempt to make himself the gatekeeper.

We’re told that prior CPS CEOs have followed the standard practice of developing relationships and open communications with all board members, who are collectively the CEO’s boss; otherwise there is the risk of a de facto board of one.

If allowed to stand, Harden’s troubling maneuver “would ensure that the voting members of the board remain uninformed of the district’s financial issues, the actual costs of measures being proposed, and the limitations on district funding sources to cover such obligations,” Martinez wrote.

In case you think that’s hyperbole, it’s been Harden who has attempted (more than once) to convince the board to approve obtaining a high-interest loan to cover a $175 million pension payment Johnson says CPS should pay even though the legal obligation to fund that pension plan belongs to the city government.

Harden’s unhappiness with Martinez’s communications stemmed from two memos Martinez had sent to board members informing them that CPS’ projected budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year was $529 million without including the $175 million pension payment and that the district “would be unable to assume debt on reasonable loan terms in the current climate,” according to the affidavit. That information apparently helped convince a sufficient number of board members that agreeing to make the $175 million payment was a bad idea — and indeed the matter never came to a vote because Harden lacked enough support for approval.

It should go without saying that those two pieces of information were highly relevant for board members being pressured by the mayor to do something so financially reckless.

As it stands, in the absence of an unexpected change in revenue trends at CPS, the school system next school year may have to consider cutting as many as 1,700 positions, necessitating the layoff of many workers, according to Chalkbeat, which obtained a recent budget presentation to the board. That outlook assumes CPS will get $300 million from a city-declared surplus in tax-increment financing revenues, as it did for the current budget year.

In addition, Martinez points out in his affidavit, CPS is negotiating labor agreements with three other unions representing school workers. Those union deals have “me too” provisions entailing that workers with one union get the same level of benefits (including wage increases) if another union negotiates something more generous. Thankfully, that “me too” provision isn’t part of the contract recently ratified with CTU. But does anyone think CTU won’t be asking its allies who make up a majority of the school board to amend CTU’s deal if another union negotiates something sweeter — say, higher annual raises?

Yet another reason to keep the court order in place that ensures the CPS CEO is the lead negotiator with unions rather than the board. In response to a school board petition to have the temporary restraining order lifted, Martinez is asking a Cook County judge to keep it in place for the duration of his time as CEO. Even if Martinez succeeds, what happens after that?

The board is searching for Martinez’s successor. When that person is identified and chosen, will Harden insist on the same level of control he’s been unable to achieve with Martinez?

The importance of Martinez’s continuing legal battle with Harden and fellow CTU-backed members of the school board extends beyond the dwindling number of days Martinez will lead CPS. This affidavit serves effectively as a public warning to the next CPS boss, who will be well-advised to insist on being able to communicate freely with board members as a condition of accepting the job. Otherwise, the next head of CPS may well simply be signing up to shepherd the district into insolvency.

Who wants that on their resume?

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.