Illinois must keep its promise to students

Middle-class parents of college-age children know that financing a college education often depends on a delicate web of small scholarships, student loans, part-time jobs, savings, monthly payments and grants from a variety of sources.

Few students walk into college with a big check to pay a year's worth of tuition, housing and other expenses. Even fewer are awarded one big scholarship to cover everything.

So when one of these pieces goes missing, it's a potential crisis.

More than 140,000 Illinois college students face that very crisis today because lawmakers cut $220 million in Monetary Award Program grants from the state budget.

Without the need-based grants, promised to students last spring based on answers to the 100-plus questions of the FAFSA financial aid form, students enrolled at Illinois private and public universities and community colleges right now might not be able to return to school in January. Grant amounts vary. The maximum is about $5,000 per school year.

Without that money, students like Gurnee's Emory Patterson would have to leave Western Illinois University halfway through his senior year and enter the work force with an incomplete education. Payments on student loans will soon begin, and he might never finish the degree that would make the difference between working construction and managing projects.

"If we don't get this resolved for the spring, these students are likely to never return to college," said Charles Middleton, president of Roosevelt University in Schaumburg and Chicago said. "And they are likely to never be participants in the high-end work force that we are trying to develop for Illinois' future."

It's a situation that Western Illinois University President Al Goldfarb calls "catastrophic" for Illinois higher education.

That's because, from the college's standpoint, it's not just about the loss of the grant. If the students don't return for spring semester - or ever - they have lost all of their tuition, room and board. For Roosevelt alone, that could mean a loss of $10 million to $15 million, Middleton said.

If tens of thousands of students drop out of public universities, the cost could be even larger than the $220 million the state is trying to save.

Families don't plan for college one semester at a time. The financial aid formula is based on the whole school year. The state promised the money to students. It's not right to leave them hanging.

Yes, $220 million sure is a lot of money. That's especially true with the state's $12 billion deficit.

For many suburban families, $1,500 or even $2,500 over six months doesn't sound completely insurmountable. But for those who qualify for this need-based grant, it almost certainly is.

When state lawmakers return for the veto session in October, it will be their only chance to make this right.

Please, let the state keeps its promise to tomorrow's leaders. Restore this funding and let these young people finish the school year. It's the right thing to do.