Northern Illinois University’s new AIM HIGH campus housing grant offers students living on campus $2,500-per-year for four years, as long as they’re Illinois residents and meet certain academic and financial criteria.
“We know that living on campus is so beneficial to students," said NIU administrator Sol Jensen. "It's beneficial to their student success academically, it helps them get engaged in various communities and interest groups."
Jensen says they’ve seen an increase in students returning to live on campus after their freshman year, instead of moving off campus. Last year, NIU had its most students living on campus in nearly a decade.
The money for the new housing grant comes from the state’s AIM HIGH program. Five years ago, NIU announced its “Huskie Pledge” grant program to cover all tuition and fees for eligible students. AIM HIGH also funds the Huskie Pledge initiative.
Jensen says that even though covering tuition and fees with Huskie Pledge can make a big difference for many students, there are still gaps that can make college unaffordable -- and housing is a major one.
On top of the additional housing grant, the university is expanding Huskie Pledge’s eligibility requirements. He says, when it started five years ago, families wouldn’t qualify if they made more than $75,000 a year. Now, they’ve raised that threshold to $115,000.
And Jensen says that threshold could be even higher depending on the size of your family.
“The way that AIM HIGH is set up is that we actually can impact middle income families," he said. "For example, for a family of four in the household, the income threshold could be somewhere around $240,000.”
NIU can afford to include more families in Huskie Pledge and start the new campus housing grant because, Jensen says last year, the state increased how much money it was investing in AIM HIGH.
“We were receiving somewhere between about 3.6 and 3.8 million per year," he said, "and, again, now it's somewhere about $5 million, $5.1 million per year."
For NIU to take part in the grant program, they have to have skin in the game too. They have to match at least 70% of what the state provides. They can do even more if they want, but NIU currently matches 71% out of its own pocket.
So far, between Huskie Pledge, a transfer grant and a few other programs, Jensen says around 7,000 NIU students have received AIM HIGH grants. And over 4,000 have had tuition and fees covered through Huskie Pledge.
When the state grants started back in 2019, there were lofty goals. For one, AIM HIGH was supposed to help keep more students in state for college since the grants were limited to Illinois residents. They also hoped it would increase college affordability and enhance enrollment.
Jensen highlights that this was a period, after the state budget crisis, where public universities were still in a pretty tough spot -- and that initiatives like AIM HIGH have had a positive impact.
“Over these past few years," he said, "what you've really seen is a stabilization of many of the institutions who, at least for a decade before, had seen some pretty significant decline in enrollments."
There are other factors too, like a significant increase in MAP grants and state operational funding.
Jensen notes that this influx of state aid has allowed the university to substantially expand scholarships.
Has it stopped the flow of students leaving the state for college? Well, he says, not really, that has remained about the same.
Jensen says that AIM HIGH was originally supposed to be a temporary program. In fact, it was set to end this fall. But, last year, NIU was one of many universities advocating for the state to pass legislation to make it permanent -- and they did.
“We have just been shouting from the rooftops about how great this program is," he said. "And I will just say that we have heard quite a few legislators who have spoken about Husky pledge very positively. They saw Huskie Pledge as one of those key, defining ways of using AIM HIGH.”
Prospective students can apply for Huskie Pledge and the new housing grant by submitting their FAFSA or the Alternative Application for Illinois Financial Aid by February 1st, 2025.
