Northeastern Illinois University student Joel Perdomo-Hernández, 23, will be the only person in his five-member family to graduate college come December.
The Belmont Cragin native works at Costco’s tire shop for his job during the day and then studies at NEIU after he gets off his shift at night.
His parents are immigrants from Guatemala; his dad is a mechanic and his mom is a housecleaner. It’s taken Perdomo-Hernández five years to make it through college, and he said his parents are over the moon.
“They’re kind of like, ‘This is why we came here,’” Perdomo-Hernández said.
With its first bump in enrollment in nearly 15 years and new leadership as of this summer, NEIU is positioned to help its nontraditional students excel. Despite facing fiscal challenges like many universities across the nation, Katrina E. Bell-Jordan — the university’s eighth president — has a vision for educational justice.
“We need to have a strong, vibrant, economically sound future,” Bell-Jordan said. “Our work is to move in that direction.”
The university in the North Park neighborhood has seen ups and downs with leadership and finances for years but announced an enrollment of 5,734 this fall — a 4.2% increase from the previous year. This is the first bump in enrollment in nearly 15 years, with an increase in the freshman class.
Bell-Jordan celebrated the bump in enrollment, crediting the university’s admissions and onboarding teams for the freshman class size gains. She said NEIU’s strong academic programming — its social work and education tracks — helped with retention efforts.
The growth of NEIU’s freshman body is a good sign for the university, said Robert M. Zemsky, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. Shifting attitudes among high school students about the importance of higher education has led to lower enrollment and financial strain on colleges and universities across the country, especially at small state schools, according to Zemsky.
The trend was further exacerbated by the pandemic.
“These are tough times for higher education, unless you’re at the top of the totem pole,” Zemsky said.
NEIU serves untraditional students, who may be older, have dependents, work full time while attending school or return to education after a break. About 48% of the total students — undergraduate and graduate — are Hispanic, according to the university’s website. NEIU is the longest-standing four-year public Hispanic-serving institution in the Midwest, Bell-Jordan said.
The new president said she was proud of NEIU’s long-standing relationship with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities for several successful partnerships, including with Telemundo Academy providing professional development for students interested in media careers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture providing research opportunities.
Promising to reinforce and coalesce around the types of students NEIU serves, Bell-Jordan replaced former President Gloria Gibson over the summer.
NEIU decided not to renew Gibson’s contract in 2022, and in March 2023, its faculty passed a vote of no confidence against the outgoing president amid tensions between faculty and leadership. Gov. JB Pritzker also named five new board members in 2023.
Bell-Jordan brings institutional knowledge to the role as an employee at NEIU for nearly 30 years, said Chuck Ambrose, senior education consultant at Husch Blackwell and author of the book, “Colleges on the Brink: The Case for Financial Exigency.”
“Leadership really matters, and (Bell-Jordan and the board) certainly have a vital mission,” Ambrose said. “When you’re in a highly densely populated, very diverse region like Chicago, just by being an institution committed to student success, it becomes a social-economic mobility mechanism for the students served.”
Like Perdomo-Hernández, over 30% of the student body is first-generation, meaning their parents or legal guardians don’t have a bachelor’s degree.
“There is a role and a need … for institutions like Northeastern who believe in servicing untraditional students, being open to those students, creating the programming and the wraparound services so that those students are successful,” said Michelle Morales, the vice chair of the board of trustees.
The university is mindful of shifting dynamics in the workplace due to the advent of tools like artificial intelligence, said J. Todd Phillips, chair of the university’s board of trustees. NEIU partners with online programs like Coursera Career Academy to provide computer science and other technology certifications at reduced costs.
“(The students) are supporting not only themselves and building for their own futures, but they’re also building for the futures of their families and their communities,” Phillips said.
Though Bell-Jordan said NEIU achieved a balanced budget for 2025 without raising tuition or fees, the cost of classes is still too high for some. Farzad Kosarnezhad, 41, a refugee from Iran who works as a grocery stocker at Jewel-Osco, studies philosophy at NEIU.
He said he wants to transfer to Harry S. Truman College where he can pay $500 for three credits, about a third of what he’s paying now. He doesn’t get tuition support from Jewel, he said.
“I applied, but it’s very competitive,” Kosarnezhad said.
But NEIU still faces headwinds. Despite some enrollment gains, the university only has about half the number of students as it did in 2010. The university’s operating revenue has mirrored that decline, despite successful efforts to secure external funding.
NEIU is asking for more state appropriations that match the commitment and energy on campus with a new president.
“We need the governor and all the other folks in Springfield to appreciate how hard these students are working and the resources they deserve,” Morales said.
