(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Gov. JB Pritzker hasn’t given up on his community college idea.

The proposal to allow community colleges to grant bachelor’s degrees in some disciplines did not get through the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session, but Pritzker said this week the demand is too great.

“There are some specific areas in industry where we need more people than the universities can produce for example certain kinds of nursing professions even if you had full programs at the univ’s, you couldn’t produce enough to fill all the positions that are available in the state of Illinois.”

The legislature’s fall veto session is in October.

Pritzker also said he would like to see the concept of Illinois’ K-12 evidence-based funding formula applied to higher education.

“It’s got to be done in the right way. There is a lot of complication to it. It isn’t as simple as, ‘well, let’s do it like K-12 does it,” said Pritzker. “It’s certain that we need to invest in, particularly, the colleges and universities that have been left out and left behind and have been disinvested from, and those happen, especially, to be the ones that are in Black communities.”