Financial Aid Trouble For Illinois Universities: Legislators Cut Funding Program

By Anna Deem in News on Oct 10, 2009 6:30PM

Earlier this year, lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn decided, in the midst of a state budget crisis, to cut funding for the MAP grants financial aid program, and fund only half of the $440 million program, just enough to get the quarter of Illinois' college students that rely on MAP through the first half of the school year. If lawmakers don't restore the funds during their fall session in Springfield this week, the 137,000 undergraduates could find their educations at risk.

University presidents have turned to lobbying Springfield and newspaper editorial boards to get their voices heard. Quinn has also been attending rallies on college campuses throughout Illinois. Hundreds of students are expected to show up at a rally on Thursday at the capitol building.

"It is catastrophic for the state" Al Goldfarb, president of Western Illinois University in Macomb, told the Chicago Tribune. 2,800 students are at risk of losing an average of $1,800 each next semester at Goldfarb's institution.

"I have never seen anything quite as drastic as this," Northern Illinois University President John Peters said to the Tribune. About 28 percent of the undergraduates, or 5,026 students, at NIU get MAP program grants, totaling $11 million. "We can't wait until the spring for a political solution." Peters estimated that one-third of MAP Program recipients could drop out, partly because so many of them come from families who earn less than $20,000 a year. "These are very, very needy students. Many of them have no family assets," Peters said to the Tribune. "These are fragile kids, and where are they going to go? To a job that doesn't exist?"

Some colleges, public and private, said they will try and work with students on a case-by-case basis to help them find loans or part-time jobs to make up for their loss in financial aid.

Brian Schmidt, 22, an engineering senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told the Tribune that he plans on trying to get more loans in case he loses his MAP funding next semester, "It adds a lot of stress to the school year when I am trying to go for job interviews and finish my courses strong," said Schmidt.