Anyone familiar with Illinois state schools and their baseball programs?

Do you care to share what schools?  How about geography?  I know a little bit about baseball in Illinois.  

Iowamom, I'll say this.  Not about baseball per se, but Illinois schools.  We have been visiting schools all summer. In IL, WI, MO, MI, OH, etc.  Without question the Illinois schools have been dumps compared to other schools. The IL state budget is in such shambles it is taking its toll on the schools.  So, do your due diligence and make sure to ask the question re state finances.  

Golfman25 posted:

Iowamom, I'll say this.  Not about baseball per se, but Illinois schools.  We have been visiting schools all summer. In IL, WI, MO, MI, OH, etc.  Without question the Illinois schools have been dumps compared to other schools. The IL state budget is in such shambles it is taking its toll on the schools.  So, do your due diligence and make sure to ask the question re state finances.  

My son plans to major in political science, my husband is a former state legislator. Believe me, the state budget is thoroughly explored in a wide variety of ways. Not just in Illinois, but also Missouri and others.

Well, seein' how about only 30 cents of every dollar in Illinois education system actually goes toward students (the majority goes to pay the bloated teacher retirement system, for the public k-12 schools) I am not surprised that keeping schools in good shape hasn't been a priority.  I graduated from Illinois State in the late 80's when things were much different... during a time when Illinois wasn't being compared to Venezuela!  Don't know about the baseball anymore.

Iowa Mom, it would be good to know which schools your son is looking at and I may be able to get you more intel.  PM me if you like.  As an Illinoisan, I will say our K-12 schools outside of Chicago Public Schools are great -- and some of Chicago's magnate schools are among the best in the country.  In fact, Illinois has many of the top ranked public high schools in the country, so it's not all bad. 

As for the public Universities -- University of Illinois is a fantastic school and highly ranked.  As for baseball, admittedly, I haven't seen the condition of the facilities at many of the in-state colleges recently, and agree with Golfman25 that the state's financial situation should be a consideration, but hope that people don't make sweeping generalizations and rule out Illinois entirely... at least not yet.  Any other Illinois parents who have more current experience with local college baseball programs, please chime in. 

Midwest Mom posted:

Iowa Mom, it would be good to know which schools your son is looking at and I may be able to get you more intel.  PM me if you like.  As an Illinoisan, I will say our K-12 schools outside of Chicago Public Schools are great -- and some of Chicago's magnate schools are among the best in the country.  In fact, Illinois has many of the top ranked public high schools in the country, so it's not all bad. 

As for the public Universities -- University of Illinois is a fantastic school and highly ranked.  As for baseball, admittedly, I haven't seen the condition of the facilities at many of the in-state colleges recently, and agree with Golfman25 that the state's financial situation should be a consideration, but hope that people don't make sweeping generalizations and rule out Illinois entirely... at least not yet.  Any other Illinois parents who have more current experience with local college baseball programs, please chime in. 

I'll PM you. Thanks.

Iowamom, I will echo some of the statements.  As far as k-12 its hit or miss on the district.  Some are very good (my kids HS is ranked in the top 100 in the country) and others not so good.

As far as colleges go, I think it says a lot that a lot of our students first instinct is to look out of state for the better public schools.  Illinois is good, but a lot of kids look to go to Iowa, Indiana or WI rather then stay instate.  More and More kids looking at MSU now a days as well.  

Look very closely at the financial situation of the school you are looking at.  A few of our public colleges are on the verge of going under due to the states financial situation.  Chicago State was the most public, but I have hear that Eastern and Western IL had/are having issues as well.  

This is about a year old, and we now have a state budget, so Im guessing the landscape has changed some, but from what I understand many of our state school still have junk ratings

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/2...education/index.html