The Illinois state budget has been yet to be passed which is affecting the MAP grants that many Saint Xavier students receive. “A MAP grant is an award that is given to students that are Illinois residents attending an eligible Illinois institution, which Saint Xavier qualifies as,” said Susan Swisher, executive director of financial aid.
Many Saint Xavier students receive MAP grants. According to Swisher, about 50% of the students are recipients. “We serve a very high need population,” said Swisher.
Students may not be aware of the issue with MAP grants, because Saint Xavier, along with most of the other colleges in Illinois have put forth the money for MAP grants this semester in hopes of being reimbursed when the budget passes.
However, if there is still no budget by the time the spring semester comes, Swisher does not have a concrete answer for what will happen. “That is something I can’t answer, because we don’t know when the budget is going to be passed. The way it is right now, we’ve put in our payment requests for the fall awards and the state is not processing them. They’re holding our payment requests until the awards are here or until the budget is approved,” said Swisher.
Swisher wants to emphasize that students should not be concerned about the future of their college careers due to this government impasse. “This doesn’t mean that Saint Xavier students aren’t going to be covered [in the spring], it’s just that’s where we’re at right in this moment. […] It’s like a wait and see type of thing when we’ll be able to put in the [payment request for spring]. My hunch is that we will still disperse the funds, just like all schools are dispersing the funds,” said Swisher.
Students will not be left out of the loop if any changes are to come with the MAP grants. “No students will be blindsided, once we find out what is going to happen, we will communicate with them to figure out how we can work with them. We’re keep our fingers crossed that we will at least have a flat budget. If we have a flat budget, we’ll be fine,” said Swisher.
The money in the state budget for MAP grants last year was about $373 million. “We’re hoping it doesn’t get reduced. I know before they were trying to get more MAP dollars and I think everyone has conceded that if we just get what we had last year, then students won’t be affected by it and we’ll be good to go,” said Swisher.
While staffs at Saint Xavier are patiently waiting for a resolution to this issue, there are other people that are always trying to push forward the budget and lobby on the school’s behalf. “We belong to the Federation of Independent Colleges and we’ve given them a lot of data to lobby on our behalf. All of the schools across the state are doing the same thing. Our President [Christine Wiseman] is on the board for FICO and the board for the Illinois Board of Higher Education. So as a result of that, our voice is heard,” said Swisher.
Students in the past have also done their part to let the government know how important MAP grants are. “We’ve had students go down to Springfield. I don’t know if something like that is being organized right now, but there could be a push to get the students to help lobby on behalf of getting the awards,” said Swisher.
The most important take away from Swisher is that she wants students to know, that they should not worry about the future of the MAP grants. “We want students here to know that we are very aware of what’s going on and we’re going to do what we can on our behalf along with other schools in the state,” said Swisher.
Lauren Dwyer
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
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