Taxpayer funding for University of Illinois is only around 10-15%. it was dramatically cut in recent years; this is probably true of most state universities across the nation after the recession. Internationals are essentially helping make up for that gap in state funding. UIUC also does very well in the Shanghai world college rankings and STEM rankings which attracts (wealthy) Chinese nationals. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily for a university to have a strong international reputation, especially in China.