Hey everyone! Your State Executive Team hopes you had a great holiday season and your semester is starting off well! We had a great time this weekend with Advisory Board and we hoped you learned a lot about our upcoming primary elections. Don't forget to tell your chapters about February 16th, the last day to register to vote, or March 15th, the day to get out and vote.
For this blog post, we'd like to shift gears and tell you all about an important piece of legislation that is trying to get through our state government concerning MAP grants. At our Fall Conference, we had you all sign postcards to Governor Rauner asking him to please allow funding for MAP grants to be passed through Congress so that our students can stay in higher education. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be listening to us.
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| image from http://www.chicagonow.com/ |
Although Congress has pushed through a bill that would provide for $373 million, $24 million less than what was already proposed and vetoed by Rauner, Rauner still insists he will veto SB 2043.
As College Democrats of Illinois President Kevin Cheng notes, "Tens of thousands of students across Illinois rely on MAP grants to pursue their dreams and better their communities through education. Students have enough stress with classes starting up and exams on the horizon. MAP grant funding should not and does not have to be another source of worry."
IEA will keep an eye out for SB 2043 and make sure we can let our voices be heard to President Rauner if he continues to threaten its veto.
