Illinois to Restore Funding to Grant Program for Low-Income Students

Due to state budget cuts, about 137,000 low-income college students in Illinois were not going to get grants under the state’s Monetary Award Program (MAP) for the second semester of the current academic year. The loss of state money for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission would certainly have forced many of these low-income students, a large percentage of whom are black, to drop out of college.

But faced with public pressure and lobbying from state university presidents, the legislature passed a law directing Governor Pat Quinn to borrow money from other state programs to come up with the $200 million needed to make MAP grants for the spring semester.