The University of Illinois - Springfield

Date: Feb 27 2010
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
If you want an education dont waste your time and money at this school. It is a beaurocratic cluster of careless administrators, most of whom have PHd's. Suppose it shouldn't be surprising though, the place is a quasi-state institution, and like all in Illinois the employees/participants are more concerned about securing their place in the system of patronage and favoratism then they are about making good on the purpose of the institution. The standards of performance and general student conduct are exceptionally low—even accomodationist. I think this university panders to people who don't take education seriously, because there is money in open admissions. Really annoying if you work a full time job to know that, in addition to the tuition payments you are making, your taxes are going to some grant pool to offset the cost of people who generally bring down the quality of education to attend a class alongside you. The professors I've had have been generally unprepared and many knew less about their subject matter than I did. In addition, this school has trended toward forcing online classes for practically everything. The quality of education is not the same…I think in many ways it is an effort to broaden the admissions for the sake of getting more money to the school; of course it also means the instructors can be less accessible.

My advice to anyone looking at UIS for a possible college choice is to look elsewhere. I attended SIUC about six years ago and graduated from there with a bachelors degree; at the time, as now, that school had a reputation as being a party school or whatever. Thing is, looking back, it was socially more robust and the instructors/level of education was much more professional. I know that UIS likes to tout its small class sizes, but I can tell you from personal experience that a student to faculty ratio of 14 to 1 means nothing in terms of quality education if 13 of those students are there to waste time by whining about deadlines, or course work, etc. and the one teacher is either willing to go along with them, or is too unprepared to do otherwise.

Go to a different school.