At NIU, we believe a life-changing education should be within reach of everyone, and we’re leading the way in Illinois and nationally in our efforts to remove barriers to a high-quality college education.
We are committed to making an NIU degree accessible, equitable and affordable. Recognizing that students’ hard work in high school is reflected in their grades, we became one of the nation’s first public universities to announce test-free admissions and merit scholarships.
Our Huskie Pledge program is helping to ensure that qualifying Illinois students from lower-income households can attend college with no tuition or general fees for their first year and potentially beyond. Our new Rockford Promise NIU Scholarship will create opportunities for hundreds of students from the city of Rockford to earn NIU degrees without having to pay tuition or fees. And we’ve eliminated undergraduate application fees—we don’t want anything standing in the way of our future students.
These and other efforts represent a major university financial commitment to our vision as an engine for innovation to advance social mobility, promote intellectual growth and transform the world.
Application Fees/Tuition
NIU has eliminated the more expensive tuition rates for domestic out-of-state residents as well as eliminating undergraduate application fees for all students.
Test-free Admissions and Merit Scholarships
Recognizing that students’ high school GPA is the strongest predictor of student success at the university level, and that reliance on standardized test scores creates inequity in admission and financial aid determinations, we became one of the nation’s first public universities to announce test-free admissions and merit scholarships.
Test-free admissions has been implemented for the fall 2021 semester, while test-free merit awards was piloted for the fall 2020 class and fully implemented for the fall 2021 class.
Goal 2B
Common App
NIU joined the Common App in August 2020, to reduce barriers to the pursuit of higher education and give students a way to apply to NIU and multiple other colleges with one online application.
Huskie Pledge
Our Huskie Pledge program is helping to ensure that qualifying Illinois students from lower-income households can attend college with no tuition or general fees for their first year and potentially beyond.
Goal 2B
Rockford Promise
NIU’s new Rockford Promise NIU Scholarship will create opportunities for hundreds of students from the city of Rockford to earn NIU degrees without having to pay tuition or fees.
Goal 2B
College Recruitment
NIU is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse student body, and many of our academic colleges have initiatives focused on intentional recruitment of historically underserved students.
College of Business
- The College of Business is intentional in seeking to recruit diverse populations of students.
- Each fall, the NIU Association for Latinos for America (ALPFA) has hosted a Latinos in Business Day for high school students (will resume post-pandemic). This event includes presentations of current NIU ALPFA students, engagement with professionals and lunch. Attendance ranges from 65-100 students.
- Further, in collaboration with the Chicago Chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), the college has created an Accounting Career Awareness program to host 25 underrepresented students for a week, and encourage them to learn more about applying and transitioning to college.
- Enhanced student recruitment and enrollment communications to high schools that serve diverse student populations throughout the northern Illinois region, including student virtual events, videos, chat widgets, texting reach-outs and a podcast series.
- The PLEDGE (Partnering to Lead and Empower District-Grown Educators) program to boost teacher and leader K-12 school diversity in community areas such as Elgin, Rochelle and Rockford.
Building on CEET’s rich history of strengthening the STEM pipeline for female students from Middle School to college, CEET director of outreach and diversity works closely with CEET coordinator of recruitment and retention to conduct a diverse set of recruitment, retention and outreach initiatives, with a target focused on historically underserved students.
Chief among these initiatives is CEET collaborative work with Fermi Lab, which resulted in the Accelerator Engineering Fellowships for Underrepresented Minorities (ASPIRE) program. Since fall 2021 to date, four CEET students have been able to join the program as interns.
Additionally, the partnership between CEET and Collins Aerospace has yielded an annual financial contribution to support the college’s DEI programming, senior design projects and discretionary funding. Part of this funding has directly benefited activities of underrepresented professional student organizations in the college.
CEET will further continue to broaden the participation of historically underrepresented students in undergraduate research, student organizations, peer mentoring, engineering design competitions, sponsored research and internship activities.
- Programs with limited admission reviewed criteria to optimize recruitment and admission of a diverse cohort. These include decreased reliance on standardized test scores and expanded discussion of a holistic approach to admission. Also, program faculty updated policies for remediation to improve academic achievement.
- The College of Law is initiating pipeline partnerships with minority-serving and Hispanic-serving institutions. Through these partnerships, the College of Law (CLAW) will introduce undergraduates to the benefits of attending law school. Further, upper-division students will learn strategies on achieving higher scores on the LSAT placement exams and preparing a strong law school application. The goal is to support these institutions in producing graduates bound for law school and increase diverse applicants and enrollees to NIU Law. In November 2020, CLAW formalized its first partnership with Lincoln College (a minority-serving institution). There are plans to form similar partnerships with Latinx-serving institutions in our region.
- The College of Law sent a special communication to the pre-law advisors at all of the historically black colleges and universities and Latinx/Hispanic-serving institutions inviting them to connect with NIU Law and highlighting how their students would thrive in our law school community.
- In 2012, the College of Law developed a partnership with Legal Prep Academy, a unique law-themed high school located on the west side of Chicago. The college hosts an annual visit with students at the law school where they participate in a mock class, hear from current students and engage in other relevant activities.
- In 2019, Associate Dean Yolanda King and Professor Wendy Vaughn launched the LEARN program, an innovative diversity pipeline program for historically underrepresented groups. The program is funded by a grant from AccessLex. The goal of the program, which concluded at the end of 2020, was to aid students in reducing barriers for matriculation into law school and legal careers.
Partnering with Chicago Public Schools and the Director of Arts Education, Julia DeBettencourt, to develop direct pipelines from art-focused high schools in the system, with auditions, interviews and portfolio reviews designed specifically for CPS. Further, CVPA is investigating the possibility of offering NIU college credit for some arts classes offered in CPS.
In addition, our nationwide network of alumni helps us identify promising students from diverse backgrounds, particularly those students who may not have had access and opportunity for extensive arts enrichment. One way we are opening our doors wider and making the path to a degree broader is the newly approved B.A. degree in music.
The B.A. degree in music is designed for those who love music and seek a career in the music industry, but whose interests are broader than what our conservatory program offers. In both cases, these programs are designed to provide greater access and opportunity for a diverse population.