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Faculty, graduate students press SIU trustees to reconsider RizePoint online partnership
Summary
At public comment the SIU Board heard multiple faculty and graduate student speakers alleging that the RizePoint vendor model diverts tuition revenue, risks academic quality, and imposes financial strain on graduate assistants; one program faculty reported enrollment gains after partnering with RizePoint, underscoring mixed impacts.
Multiple faculty members, graduate assistants and program directors used the board's public-comment period to urge trustees to halt or rethink SIU's partnership with RizePoint, a private provider the university has engaged to expand online programming.
"RizePoint programs contribute to our bottom line even after we send RizePoint half of the tuition and fees paid by our students," said David Johnson, a member of the Faculty Senate Budget Committee. He told trustees that RizePoint'managed programs contributed roughly $300,000 this spring but said the campus's internal online budget rules would register a $400,000 loss under the same accounting, a discrepancy he said requires board scrutiny.
Several faculty speakers argued that the revenue-sharing model sends significant tuition dollars out of state and into private firms while undermining investment in local instructional capacity. "When we stop investing in our own capacity...we become dependent on outside vendors for core functions," said Matthew Romero, president of the tenure-track faculty association in Carbondale, adding that outsourcing can erode long-term institutional capability.
Graduate assistants raised affordability concerns tied to mandatory student fees. Anahit Amery, a graduate student, described marketplace insurance changes and fee burdens that leave many graduate assistants under severe financial pressure, calling proposed athletic fee increases "a burden on the lowest-paid campus employees who also pay essential roles."
Not all public comments opposed RizePoint. Justin McDaniel, a faculty member whose program contracted with RizePoint for recruitment support, said the partnership helped revive enrollment in a public-health program, tripling headcount and preserving the program as a workforce pipeline. "In two years, we more than tripled our enrollment," he said.
Board leaders did not take immediate formal action on RizePoint at the meeting. President Mahoney and other system leaders later emphasized long-standing use of outside providers in online education and encouraged continued shared-governance dialogue; however, the detailed financial and operational claims raised by faculty and students were not resolved during the session.
