ISAC Student PortalMonetary Award Program (MAP) Task Force
Background: During the spring 2012 session of the Illinois General Assembly, Senate Joint Resolution 69 created the MAP Task Force. The task force will be chaired by the Executive Director of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, with agency staff providing administrative and other support.
Purpose: The purpose of the MAP Eligibility Task Force is to deliberate options of new rules for the Monetary Award Program with the goal of improving the outcome for students who receive the grants.
Findings of the task force are required to be reported to the General Assembly by January 1, 2013. New eligibility criteria for MAP, however, will not be effective prior to the 2014-15 academic year.
Representation: The Resolution states that the Task Force shall include, without limitation, one representative from each of the following groups:
- Illinois public universities
- Illinois public community colleges
- Illinois non-profit, private colleges and universities
- Illinois proprietary institutions
- Association of Financial Aid Administrators
- current MAP recipients
- Illinois Community College Board
- Illinois Board of Higher Education
- Office of the Lieutenant Governor
- ISAC Executive Director
- ISAC staff member
Additionally, input is to be sought through public meetings that include students and additional stakeholders.
Scope: The Resolution directs that new rules for MAP are to be designed so they do not alter, nor have an adverse impact on an institution’s mission, and with the following goals:
- to improve partnerships between the State and institutions as they provide both financial assistance and academic support to MAP recipients;
- to improve the overall effectiveness of MAP grants in helping students of need not only enter college, but complete a degree program; and
- to recognize that all colleges and universities are different and the different natures of their student populations and the varying missions must be recognized as inherently good and valuable.
Further, the Resolution directs that task force deliberations should include these concepts:
- institutional eligibility for MAP grants may, in the future, become based in part on an institution’s ability to improve its MAP grant students’ progress towards a degree or its MAP grant degree completion rate;
- a student’s eligibility for a MAP grant may, in the future, become based in part on that student’s ability to demonstrate that he or she is achieving academic success and making progress; and
- an institution’s eligibility for MAP grants may, in the future, become based in part on its ability to demonstrate that it is a partner with the State and the institution is providing financial aid to students from its own resources.
