Photo Poll: MAP Grants

By Satta Kendor

Freshman psychology major Briana Staley

Q: Why is receiving the MAP Grant important to you?

A: Not all financial aid pays for everything and it’s like the MAP Grant helps pay for everything else.

Q: How long have you received the MAP Grant?

A: Entire college career, fall and spring semester.

Q: How do you feel about the possibility of not having MAP Grants funded?

A: The other grants and stuff like that with financial aid it don’t actually [cover] everything so like getting the MAP Grant like helps cover at least half of it.

Q: Why should the state consider the possibility of student enrollment rates dropping while figuring out a budget?

A: We shouldn’t have to pay that back. It’s like why should students have to pay back something they earn, though? It helps students. Not every student can afford college and financial aid is all the help they got.


Freshman nursing major Malika Williams-Graham

Q: Why is receiving the MAP Grant important to you?

A: I feel like it determines whether or not you’ll be able to stay in college, because like me personally, I don’t get that much financial aid anyway so I be having to take out loans and stuff.

Q: How long have you received the MAP Grant?

A: Entire college career, fall 2015 semester and spring 2016.

Q: How do you feel about the possibility of not having MAP Grants funded?

A: I might not be able to continue here at NIU. I’ll probably have to go to like a community college.

Q: Why should the state consider the possibility of student enrollment rates dropping while figuring out a budget?

A: Many students will drop out and won’t, and like many of us we won’t be actually able to actually pay it back and in my opinion it’s like taking out loans.


Freshman pre-nursing major Randi Smith

Q: Why is receiving the MAP Grant important to you?

A: It’s not just important to me. I feel like it’s important to all students who receive it because everybody can’t afford tuition. That extra [$2,000] probably just gonna put people more in debt, take out more loans and it’s just [going to] mess it up for everybody. People already struggling to pay tuition.

Q: How long have you received the MAP Grant?

A: Entire college career. First semester as student, spring 2016.

Q: How do you feel about the possibility of not having MAP Grants funded?

A: It’s gonna put me more in debt. I don’t have a job so I won’t, probably won’t, be able to pay it back in a timely manner so I probably won’t be able to enroll next semester, which will delay my career and I ain’t got time for that.

Q: Why should the state consider student enrollment rates dropping while figuring out a budget?

A: Everybody can’t afford college themselves that’s why we use financial aid, because everybody don’t have $22,000 a year just to give away to college, and that makes more people wanna, not even wanna chase their dreams or try to get their degree or anything, they have to pay more money.


Student Association President Nathan Lupstein, senior political science major

Q: Why is receiving the MAP Grant important to you?

A: MAP [Grants are] important because [they give] a lot of students the opportunity to adequately fund their education. There’s a lot of students that rely on the state and I think the attention of the MAP Grant is not only to help students that are seeking an education, but also it transcends education because we need people to go to college not just to get jobs and become successful members of society, but we need people in these academic disciplines creating progress in our respective fields, you know… .

Q: How long have you received the MAP Grant?

A: Entire college career, since freshman year 2012.

Q: How do you feel about the possibility of not having MAP Grants funded?

A: I pay for my college so not having that MAP funding, if I hadn’t gotten it from the university this year, I would have been very, well, I’d be in a very dire situation because I already work on campus, I pay my rent and I pay my tuition so I have a lot of extracurricular obligations that I would probably have to give up to pick up another job if I hadn’t received the credit from NIU this semester, and I think this is the case for a lot of students too. I think a lot of them rely on that money. We’re full time students for a reason, we’re supposed to dedicate a certain amount of time to our studies and even more so if you want to create a more vibrant and productive campus community. We should be seeking to do things outside of the classroom as well. So when you have to provide your own monetary support beyond what the state is giving you or beyond what scholarships you may earn, that takes a significant amount of time out of availability you have to pursue other endeavors.

Q: Why should the state consider student enrollment rates dropping while figuring out a budget?

A: We need the state of Illinois to continue to produce some of the highest quality students in the country and we can’t do that if some of them can’t receive the funding they need to go to school. More students are going to see attending college as a much more daunting task because it’s not only the rigor that’s going to intimidate them, but they might not think that they are ever going to be able to afford it, so some people knowing that there’s not going to be state funding to kind of support their education might be disillusioned with the idea of even trying to pursue an education here.


Tyler Denham: Sophomore marketing major

Q: Why is receiving the MAP Grant important to you?

A: It gives me a chance to kind of get a lot of money provided to me so I can focus on myself more professionally, and not have to worry as much about working a full time job and really getting all that money upfront. It works as a way to where I can really develop myself academically and put more of my time into some of the organizations that I’m apart of and also my academics.

Q: How long have you received the MAP Grant?

A: Entire college career, since fall 2013.

Q: How do you feel about the possibility of not having MAP Grants funded?

A: I think I’d definitely have to take a back seat in my involvement and I think my grades would also struggle because I’d be more worried about making money right now instead of investing in myself for the future. I think every week would kind of be a struggle of making ends meet just because I would have that much more of a financial burden.

Q: Why should the state consider student enrollment rates dropping while figuring out a budget?

A: I think that it kind of speaks to a bigger problem as to why are people not coming to schools, and with the state not really being able to back the students, there’s really no confidence with Illinois students at their universities. I think for the most part students are going out of state, and that, that’s going to create even more problems in the future, talking about our economy, our politics, and then a lot of our state institutions I think will end up closing down because we can’t get enough students. So to consider the MAP Grant, I think it’s hard for students to want to apply to Illinois schools whenever there’s no confidence in it. At any point in time you could go to a public funded university and the doors could close.