Illinois Board of Education Asks for $200,000 to Revamp How It Counts Low-Income Students Amid Federal Eligibility Changes

Federal Rules Could Reduce School Funding as Student Poverty Count Drops

The Illinois State Board of Education is requesting $200,000 from lawmakers this year to develop a new way of counting low-income students. The request comes as federal eligibility rules for aid programs are expected to reduce the number of students officially classified as poor.

Illinois currently counts low-income students based on their enrollment in federal support programs including Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Under new eligibility rules from federal budget law H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enrollment in these programs is expected to decline.

The changes to SNAP eligibility that went into effect May 1 disqualify many groups of noncitizens and impose new work requirements on many able-bodied adults. Although these rules mainly affect adults, officials believe they could eventually cause entire households to become unenrolled in federal aid programs, resulting in fewer children being enrolled as well in future years.

Funding Formula Relies on Student Poverty Count

The changes in federal eligibility rules could have a direct impact on the amount of state funding many districts receive through the Evidence-Based Funding formula. Lawmakers adopted this formula in 2017 that calls for $300 million in additional funding for public schools each year, with the bulk of that money earmarked for the least adequately funded districts.

The formula uses several factors to determine an adequacy target for each district, including the number of teachers and paraprofessionals a district needs based on its enrollment and demographic factors. For kindergarten through third-grade classes, the statute says each district should receive funding for one full-time equivalent teacher for 15 low-income students, and one for every 20 non-low-income students. For grades 4-12, the formula calls for one teacher for every 20 low-income students and one for every 25 non-low-income students.

Enrollment Data Shows Widening Gap

According to data from the state's 2025 report card, there were just over 1.8 million students enrolled in Illinois public schools during the 2024-25 school year. Of those, 49.7%, or 933,470, were classified as low-income. The highest concentration of low-income students for any single district was in Carbon Cliff-Barstow School District 36, in the Quad Cities region, which reported 100% of its students qualified as low-income. Lake Forest School District 67, in Lake County, reported only 1.3% of its students were low-income.

Declining Enrollment Raises Concerns

Although many observers say they do not expect the changes in eligibility rules to have an immediate impact on districts' official poverty rates, they note that overall enrollment in Medicaid and SNAP has been declining in recent years. According to data from the Illinois Department of Human Services, fewer than 1.7 million people in the state were receiving SNAP benefits in March 2026. That's down 13.7% from a year earlier, and 17.8% from March 2023. Medicaid enrollment in Illinois in fiscal year 2025, at 3.26 million, was down 5.7% compared to the year before, and 18% lower than it was in fiscal year 2023.

Robin Steans, executive director of the education research and advocacy group Advance Illinois, said the declining enrollment rates don't comport with our lived experiences. She noted that the state has time to come up with an alternative method.

"It's the right time for the state to explore other methodologies," Steans said.

The $200,000 request is only a small fraction of the overall $10.9 billion general revenue fund budget the agency is seeking to fund preK-12 public schools next year.