Budget Cuts Leave Many Illinois College Students Questioning Their Future

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by Shanita Bigelow

On July 15, as Illinois public officials finalized the fiscal year 2010 budget, they made many cuts. As a result, funding for the Illinois Monetary Assistance Program (MAP), which provides grants to eligible students at approved Illinois colleges and universities, was drastically cut, leaving nearly 140,000 students without the aid needed to cover the spring semester.

We have to work together on both sides of the aisle on making sure we have adequate money for our scholarships for our students for the second semesterThe Legislature only provided enough money for the first semester, Governor Pat Quinn stated in a recent Chicago Sun Times report.

Gov. Quinn is not alone in his quest for the reinstatement of the funds needed to cover the grants. Students across Illinois campuses are holding events, urging their classmates, their professors, parents and fellow citizens to support their efforts.

The best thing to do is to contact your state lawmakers, said Theresa Tracy, Public Relations Specialist for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC). Tell them that a revenue solution for MAP needs to be found.

The $200 million cut in MAP funding would affect 3000 students at Chicago State University (CSU), according to Christopher Williams, Director of Legislative and External Relations at

CSU, and would further translate to [a] loss of $3.6 million to the school as a whole, affecting the entire school community. The CSU community in collaboration with other state colleges and universities will be participating in ongoing efforts to contact public officials via petitioning, emailing, calling and letter writing in time for the October 14 veto session.

I encourage more people to become actively involved because there are significant ramifications if people are unable to actively pursue their education, Williams continued.

I am a second year student at Moraine Valley Community College at Palos Hills. Im 40 years old, and I have been working in a warehouse since 1995... Im majoring in the health sciences and holding onto a 3.8 GPA. I am the primary caretaker of my senior parents Im the last child of 12 children and the only one to make it to college, said Elena Herrera in a released statement from the June 26 ISAC meeting, held at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). With the MAP grant, I hope to graduate in the spring of 2010 with my associate

degree in the health sciences, but in the fall, I had hoped to come here to UIC to enroll in the nursing program. Im not certain how that is going to happen [n]ow, she said.

ISAC created saveillinoismapgrants.org when students returned to school, Tracy said. [W]e got a lot of calls concerning MAP. Visit the site to see how you can get involved and [s]tudents, whether reinstated or not, should visit with the financial aid offices at their schools, Tracy continued.

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