Beans Wit Attitude: Scholarships

As the recession continues to beat Illinois to the ground, college costs continue to rise. According to a report by CBS, more than 150,000 Illinois college students rely on the MAP Grant and it may not be offered to students for their second semester in 2009, forcing some students to drop out.

And as financial aid decreases in Illinois, tuition costs continue to increase. According to the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, tuition at public universities has gone up every year since 2002. Between 2002 and 2008, average tuition costs have gone from $4,606 to $8,335, an 81 percent increase. During a recession, how are students and parents supposed to cope?

The high college dropout rate helps explain shortages in the workplace. Illinois faces an extreme shortage of teachers, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. There is a need for special education teachers, especially in learning behavior specializing and speech and language impairment. Also, there is a shortage in regular education, especially bilingual education, mathematics, physical education, reading and science. In particular, Chicago has a shortage of standard elementary instructors.

Healthcare is also being hammered in the workplace. The Nursing Institute at the University of Illinois issued a study that showed the ratio of potential caregivers to the people most likely to need care, the elderly population, will decrease by 40 percent between 2010 and 2030. The Illinois Center for Nursing projected Illinois would face a shortage of 21,000 nurses by 2020.

Keeping students in college and filling these positions in the workplace requires two things: need-based and merit-based scholarships. But how does Illinois balance the two?

We believe helping the financially needy is the first and most important step. While merit-based scholarships are great for filling positions for teachers and physicians, we recognize students must get through college first. This requires more financial assistance for students and less money for merit-based scholarships.

We propose 75 percent of scholarships awarded in Illinois should be need-based, while 25 percent should be merit-based or for other reasons not based on financial need. We do not support raising taxes, but instead we support filtering Illinois’ money differently.

If these changes are to take place, we realize the standards for college students must go up as well. Entering freshmen at universities must have a high school diploma or a GED. To receive his or her scholarship, the recipient must be enrolled for at least 12 hours at a university. A student would be required to achieve his or her degree within six years.

Also, to encourage students to make full use of their financial aid, we propose students must maintain a 2.5 GPA, up from the current 2.0 GPA requirement. If a student drops below the GPA requirement for a semester or does not meet the minimum hour requirement, the student will be required to reimburse the money to Illinois.

We believe merit-based scholarships can still be awarded to fill positions in the workplace. In order to hire more teachers, we support keeping the Golden Apple Scholars Program, the Illinois Future Teachers Corp Program, and the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program. In order to fill health positions, we support the Nursing Education Scholarship Program and the Medical Student Scholarship Program. We also believe in rewarding veterans and support the Illinois Veterans Grant.

We understand Illinois taxpayers do not want taxes to raise, so we believe a change must take place within the system. This means taking the money Illinois has and distributing it differently, as proposed by our plan.