Last week, two hundred of us from the University of Illinois-Chicago — faculty, staff, and students — went downtown to save our school.

At the State of Illinois Building, we met with two of the governor’s deputy chiefs of staff. At city hall, we met with the mayor’s chief of staff and four aldermen who represent UIC.

Later, some of us met with newspaper editorial boards and nearly a dozen state legislators. Meanwhile, University of Illinois alumni, sent 2,400 letters to state leaders.

Our requests were and are simple. We want the State of Illinois to pay the $500 million that it owes us. Don’t cut our budget further. And make higher education a higher priority.

In my experience, this has been the largest grassroots university mobilization since the 1960s.

We will not sit quietly in the library while our public officials let our universities wither. We will not be silent while the state denies poor and working class students a good education.

The governor’s original budget proposed cutting an additional 16 percent, or $400 million, in funds for higher education, threatening both the quality and affordability of public higher education institutions across the state. On March 10, Governor Quinn’s budget proposed a $94 million cut instead.

Unfortunately, no one expects the governor’s budget to pass unchanged. Even fewer expect an income tax increase to raise more money for education. More likely, higher education will face greater cuts before a budget is adopted.

Whatever the budget allocation, it is useless if the state doesn’t pay its debts.

Alds. Bob Fioretti (2nd), Danny Solis (25th), Walter Burnett (27th), and Brendan Reilly (42nd) have introduced a city council resolution calling on the governor, comptroller and state legislators to reexamine the proposed university budget cuts and to pay the state’s current debt.

A hearing on the legislation will be held in early April to draw further attention to the plight of all public universities.

The problem began before the current recession and it has only gotten worse. Today, Illinois contributes 16 percent to the University of Illinois’ budget, down from 48 percent in 1990.

If state contributions do go down, tuition will be increased by as much as 20 percent. For lack of funds, academic programs will be cut. Whole departments can expect to be eliminated, as they have been at places like Triton College. There will be fewer staff to assist students and fewer courses will be offered. Students will see larger classes and fewer support programs.

In my own department, student support staff has been cut in half and we will offer seven fewer courses. As a result, 180 students will not have political science courses at UIC next year. We’ll admit fewer graduate students because of the cutbacks as well.

The cuts will hurt everywhere. UIC has one of the largest, best and most racially diverse medical schools in the country. We train one in six Illinois physicians, 44 percent of the state’s dentists, a third of the state’s pharmacists and many of the nurses and other health care professionals. Our medical center and clinics receive more than 600,000 patient visits a year. Where will our patients go if we must cut back our clinics? Where will the medical providers of the future be trained?

UIC is among Chicago’s top 20 employers. The ripple effect of our expenditures leads to an economic impact of $7.3 billion annually in Chicago and Illinois.

Most of all, we train the students who will lead Chicago in the global economy of this century.

We need a higher priority for higher education. The future of 25,000 UIC students and our future is at stake.