SPRINGFIELD -- Sharon Granderson has worked as a graphic designer for Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for 15 years.

Since she’s worked at the school for more than seven years, she qualifies for a benefit that allows the children of longer-term state university employees to get a 50 percent break on tuition at state schools.  She’s taking advantage of that benefit so her daughter, now a junior, can study psychology at SIU.

“I don’t think she could go to college without it,” Granderson said.  “She’d have to go into huge debt for loans.”

Granderson said many of her coworkers also take advantage of the benefit, and now they are worried it might disappear.

Last week, the House Executive Committee approved House Bill 5531, which would end the benefit.  It is now pending before the full House.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, said the benefit is something the state cannot afford.

“Why don’t we just let everybody in the state use this?  Why doesn’t anybody else get this opportunity to send their kids to school the same way,” Arroyo said.

Arroyo testified at the hearing that the tuition waivers were worth $387 million, based on figures from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

That is not the case, IBHE spokesman Jonathan Lackland said last week.  During the 2011 budget year, he said, waivers used by children of university employees were worth $8.16 million.  A total of 2,234 students took advantage of them.  That made the average waiver worth $3,652.

For Granderson, a single mother who earns about $40,000 a year, the waiver makes a big difference.

“The reason I took this job is the benefits package,” she said. “It certainly isn’t for the pay.  Every penny I have goes to (household) expenses.”

Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, is a member of the House Higher Education Committee Appropriations Committee, which sets budgets for state universities.

“I’ve never heard one of the universities complain (about the waiver cost),” Poe said.

What Poe is hearing are calls from constituents who work at state universities.

“I think it is a perk to keep good employees in place,” Poe said.

At the Executive Committee hearing, the debate about ending the tuition waiver for employee children became intertwined with ae debate about ending waivers handed out by state lawmakers, commonly called legislative scholarships.  Rep. Edward Acevedo, D-Chicago, said some lawmakers most vocal about ending legislative scholarships represent areas with universities that grant tuition waivers for employees.

Acevedo asked witnesses in favor of keeping employee tuition waivers if they also favored keeping legislative scholarships.  The witnesses said they were separate issues.

Multiple bills have been introduced to abolish legislative scholarships, but none has yet passed either chamber.

Most of the state’s universities oppose doing away with the employee tuition waivers for the same reason cited by Poe – it is a benefit that helps them attract and retain qualified employees.

“It is one of the benefits provided by the university that is one small measure to maintain competitiveness with peer institutions that provide a similar benefit,” said University of Illinois spokesman Thomas Hardy. 

In the 2011 budget year, employee tuition waivers cost the U of I about $4.1 million, Hardy said.  Legislative scholarships cost the school’s three campuses $9.2 million.

Part of Arroyo’s complaint about the employee waivers is that there is no income limit on them.  Anyone from a cafeteria worker to a president could qualify for the benefit.

However, David Steelman, representing Western Illinois University, said it doesn’t work out that way.

“It is technically possible for a president or vice-president or a high paid employee to utilize these waivers.  The fact is, they just don’t,” Steelman said.

Arroyo said he might be open to keeping the waivers, but capping the salary at which employees could qualify for it.  Poe said that might be acceptable as long as the salary level is high enough to benefit middle-income employees.

“We have programs for the (poor) and programs for the gifted, but we sort of neglect the middle income people,” Poe said.

Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527.