Technology at heart of campaign to save college grant program

As the clock ticks, the din grows louder.

With spring semester registration rapidly approaching and state financial aid rapidly running out, sectors of the state's collegiate world - from students to financial aid advisers to a coalition of community college, state and private university presidents - are pleading for a fix before it's too late.

"Very few things have worked me up as much as this in terms of shortsightedness," Northern Illinois University President John Peters said of drastically reduced funding to the state's Monetary Award Program. "It's the wrong cut at the wrong time."

The MAP program awards financial aid grants to Illinois students based on need, with an average grant, in the past, running about $2,500 to $3,000 a year.

Students can apply for money and use it at public colleges and universities in the state, along with the vast majority of private ones.

According to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, nearly 140,000 students - roughly a fourth of all Illinois college students - rely on the grants.

The commission, which runs the grant program, learned in mid-July that it would receive just half of the money it had expected to - about $220 million instead of $440 million.

As a result, fewer students are receiving aid, and even those who are will lose their funding come spring.

One of them is Emory Patterson.

Patterson, of Gurnee, is a senior construction management student at Western Illinois University in Macomb.

After spending three years at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Patterson transferred to Western last fall.

"I worked doing construction and put myself through community college until I could afford to come here," he said.

With tuition, room and board, books and living expenses running him roughly $12,000 a semester, Patterson said MAP grants "really fill in the blanks that my student loans don't cover."

Learning this summer that his funding would dry up come spring, he said, "it kind of made my heart drop."

He wasn't going to take this lying down.

Patterson, along with his roommate and another friend, put together a Facebook group, "Illinois Students Losing MAP Grants for 2010 is wrong!"

More than 400 students from across the state are now members.

Along with links to information about the cuts and the e-mail addresses of state legislators, individuals can also access a petition to sign. While it only has 74 signatures so far, Patterson says that he plans to begin working with the student council soon to get more from among the 2,800 students at the school with MAP grants.

Just last week, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission put up a Web site, saveillinoismapgrants.org., to arm students and parents with information about the cuts and ways they can lobby for a fix.

"We took a lot of calls as students went back to class, prompting us to start the site," spokesman Paul Palian said.

Scrolling through, students and parents can access a toolbox that tells them how to find their local legislators; ways they can access local news outlets; how to pitch blogs and draft letters to newspaper editors.

Earlier this month, a coalition of Illinois college presidents - including NIU's Peters, Loyola University Chicago's the Rev. Michael Garanzini and Roosevelt University's Charles Middleton - traveled downstate to urge Gov. Pat Quinn to work with legislators in October's veto session to restore MAP funding.

"It was very important the governor understood the timing," Peters said. "We can't wait until there's a potential solution in the new session in January. It'll be too late."

Come October, students will be registering for spring semester classes and putting their financing together.

With the current economy, Roosevelt University President Charles Middleton said, it will force a number of students to leave college and enter the work force.

While Peters said that Quinn was "receptive" to restoring the funding, he said the governor also acknowledged that there is no easy way.

Just how to restore MAP grants next semester is anybody's guess.

Peters said that the coalition of presidents are "supportive of a revenue-enhancing mechanism if it will specifically help the situation," but didn't offer specifics.

Palian said he'd heard rumblings between legislators and the governor recently about a couple of possibilities.

"A cigarette tax idea was put out there. Maybe I'll start smoking so this thing gets done," he cracked.

The governor has a history of reversing himself on budget cuts. Most recently, he announced on Wednesday that he'd be using his appropriation authority to restore $16 million in funding to the Illinois Supreme Court's operating budget, to prevent probation officer cuts.

Financial aid officials at Elgin Community College and Harper College in Palatine say their task in recent weeks has been letting students know that they are not alone.

"What we're saying to them is this is a partnership; we're in this together. Now, I don't have an answer today, but a lot can happen in Springfield in terms of the budget process," Harper College director of scholarships and financial assistance Earl Dowling said.

"I'm trying to tell our students who have the potential of losing that spring semester money, 'Do your thing for the fall semester. It's my job to worry about your finances.'"

The Student Assistance Commission is holding public forums on the MAP grant cuts through October. Student testimonies from those hearings will be posted at saveillinoismapgrants.org. The commission is also encouraging students to join a protest outside of the state capitol on Oct. 15, the second day of the veto session.