Parkland Debt Forgiveness and Updates

This post includes information and links on the latest from the Parkland Board of Trustees including a debt forgiveness program, tuition freeze, vacancy applicant interviews, and more.

The Parkland Board of Trustees made some news recently with an announcement of a debt forgiveness program called the Cobra Comeback program. WCIA had coverage a couple weeks ago:

The BOT also approved Cobra Comeback; the program gives former students a chance to restart their education by removing financial holds preventing registration. For each course returning students earn a C or higher, the cost of current tuition per credit hour will be removed from their past-due balances. There are eligibility requirements:

• Good academic standing
• Debt of no more than $2,000
• Non-enrollment at Parkland during the past academic year

More at the full blurb here. More information at the program web page here. The Board of Trustees also enacted a tuition freeze for the year mentioned in the same article. The News-Gazette had a lot of additional details on the tuition freeze in their article a couple days later. It included a bit of an overview on Parkland's funding as well:

Parkland supports its costs largely by state funding, tuition and property taxes.

Parkland’s property tax rate has remained fairly steady in recent years, Ramage said. It’s currently about 53 cents per $100 of a property’s assessed value.

But state funding has declined quite a bit over the past two decades. It’s improved since 2016, but still covers just 9 percent of Parkland’s budget, which is “woefully down” from 27 percent in 2000, according to Ramage.

That full article here.


Other Updates:

The News-Gazette had an update on Parkland's solar farm:

Two years after receiving board approval, a building permit was issued in February for the 8-acre solar farm.

The 2-megawatt field will be located in the northwest corner of campus...

The project was initially going to be built in 2018 by SolSystems LLC of Washington, D.C., which would pay to build the solar farm and earn renewable energy certificates that it could sell.

The project was delayed because “the state of Illinois was somewhat delayed in their awarding of rebates and solar renewable energy certificates,” said Jim Bustard, Parkland’s director of physical plants.

More at their Just Askin' column here.


Parkland's Public Safety police chief is in the running for an appointment for an Urbana City Council vacancy. He recently introduced himself and gave his pitch to the City Council. More on that in a recent Cheat Sheet post here.


A previous Cheat Sheet post had alerted readers to a vacancy on the Board of Trustees and the application process (now closed) back in January. Parkland's press release page has announced a list of the applicants here:

The Parkland College Board of Trustees has selected the following individuals for interviews at a special Board meeting on Tuesday, March 10, 2020. The interviews will take place during open session in the order in which their applications were received. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m., with 20 minute interviews for each candidate.

Maureen Banks, Champaign
Mark Dixon, Urbana
Michael Foellmer, Champaign
Erin Nuss, Gibson City
Barbara Schurter, Champaign
Bradley Uken, Mahomet

Full press release here.