Extension provides practical education you can trust to help people, businesses, and communities solve problems, develop skills, and build a better future.
University of Illinois Extension is the flagship outreach effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, offering educational programs to residents of all of Illinois' 102 counties — and far beyond.
Extension provides practical education you can trust to help people, businesses, and communities solve problems, develop skills, and build a better future. U of I Extension offers educational programs in five broad areas:
Energy and environmental stewardship
Food safety and security
Economic development and workforce preparedness
Family health, financial security, and wellness
Youth development
While most Extension programs are offered on an informal, non-credit basis, U of I Extension does offer continuing education credits in some fields of study. Extension programs may be offered as hands-on workshops, field days, online self-paced tutorials, or in other formats that are suitable for the audience and subject-matter.
More than 1.5 million Illinois residents take part in Extension programs each year, including nearly 200,000 who participate in 4-H youth programs. Each month, U of I Extension web pages draw more than 5 million page views, and people in more than 200 countries access Extension's web-based information.
Communities are directly served by Extension staff in 27 units located throughout Illinois. Extension educators in local offices and specialists located on the U of I campus develop and deliver in-depth programming locally, in regional venues, and through distance-learning technologies.
As part of the nationwide Cooperative Extension System, U of I Extension also is able to draw on research-based expertise from land-grant universities all across the country. Volunteers who serve on local advisory councils provide direction for U of I Extension programming, ensuring that programs continue to meet critical needs.
U of I Extension is based in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and works with all colleges and units of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
At University of Illinois Extension, our mission is to enable people to improve their lives and communities through learning partnerships that put knowledge to work.
