Illinois college students are getting award letters about their state financial aid grants for 2016-17 even though the program hasn’t been funded for this school year yet.
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission is banking on some type of appropriation to come through before next fall or at least ensuring that it’s prepared when and if the money starts flowing.
Lawmakers have yet to appropriate any funding for the need-based Monetary Award Program grants for fiscal 2016, which began last July 1, much less fiscal 2017. The MAP program disburses almost $357 million in grants to about 128,000 college students statewide each year.
Many state colleges and universities, including the University of Illinois, have agreed to cover the cost of this year’s MAP grants until funding comes through, though some declined to do so for the spring semester. said spokeswoman Lynne Baker.
“Our view is this: Students really do need to have this information on their financial aid awards in order to make informed decisions about where they’re going to school,” Baker said.
Most students have to let colleges know whether they will accept an offer of admission by this spring.
Baker didn’t have final numbers on how many grants have been awarded statewide for 2016-17.
Students indirectly apply for the MAP grants when they file their Free Application for Federal Student Aid, universally known as the FAFSA. The state commission announces the awards, but individual colleges and universities send out the award letters.
The UI sent out award letters to 9,793 new freshmen and transfer students on March 17, said financial aid Director Dan Mann, and more went out this week.
Baker said ISAC starts to award grants as soon as students start filing their FAFSA forms in January and continues “until we believe that we have run out of expected funding,” she said. That date came on March 10 this year, though students who filed for financial aid after that are put on a wait list.
ISAC always has to estimate how much money it will get for the awards, based on the previous year’s appropriation, because the final state appropriation isn’t approved until the end of June for the following school year, she said.
This year was “unprecedented” because there was no fiscal 2016 funding to use as a baseline, so the agency had to use the fiscal 2015 amount, Baker said.
ISAC wants to be ready when legislators approve money for the 2017 MAP program so it can get the money to the schools right away in the fall, she said. That would be difficult to do without the pre-approvals, she said.
That said, the announcements from ISAC and the schools always include language saying that the awards are estimated, “subject to final appropriation from the Genreal Assembly,” Baker said.
Individual colleges and universities were free to add to that this year, given the unusual state budget situation, she said.
The UI revised its language, noting that if funding for the MAP awards or any other financial aid is reduced, the grants would be “reduced or rescinded accordingly.”
“If the awards were disbursed to your account, the amount of the reduction or rescission will be charged back to your account no later than the end of the term for which the award was made, and you will be responsible for paying the account balance in accordance with University payment policies,” the letter said.
The UI’s financial aid website also tells students, “Please be aware that in light of state funding constraints, reductions to estimated or actual MAP grants are possible.”
The UI has not discussed whether it would again cover the cost of the MAP grants next fall, Mann said Friday.
