To the Illinois State Legislature:

Is it so much to ask to receive an education?

In this state, the answer apparently is yes.

We write to you on this day on behalf of ourselves and our peers in institutions of higher learning across the state of Illinois, to put a face on the numbers you are so apathetically crunching.

137,000. That’s how many students stand to suffer from the loss of the MAP grant program that helps pay the increasingly high cost of education. As you ponder how to deflate Illinois’ $11.6 billion budget deficit, we really shouldn’t be surprised to see something like the MAP program cut. It’s time-tested politics: mortgage the future to salvage a present made miserable by the same kind of thinking. It’s a vicious cycle.

But instead of trying to break the cycle, you have, in fact, accelerated it to a new level of shortsightedness.

NIU President John Peters stated in his State of the University address Sept. 10, that Illinois suffers from a “disinvestment” in higher education. Our esteemed president couldn’t have said it better. He knows as well as we do that the loss of this funding could legitimately cause one-third of our student body to vanish when the clock strikes midnight, leaving NIU and countless other universities with a depleted student population.

Clearly, robbing students the chance of an education in an effort to cover the tracks of your own failures as a state government is a sensible step. Students lose the aid to pay for school, factory workers sit at home on furlough, police and fire officials get laid off— the children pay for the sins of the parents.

Illinois: almost good enough. There’s a state slogan for you, and you didn’t even have to waste taxpayer dollars on a task force to figure it out. Consider it a freebie.

To the surprise of no one, Illinois is clearly a state without a plan. The legislature is like a dog chasing its own tail, too caught up with spinning around in circles to realize the pointlessness of its endeavor.

Our governor is no exception. State residents rejoiced when Rod Blagojevich, not a hair out of place, was unceremoniously thrown out of the governor’s mansion in January. Foolishly, many of us believed for a brief moment that new governor, Pat Quinn, would infuse Springfield with some desperately needed sanity. While Quinn may not be a punch line on Conan in the manner his predecessor was, this time around, the joke is clearly on us.

Blaming Quinn for the state’s burdensome budget deficit would be misguided. Wondering how he can possibly fix it is another matter entirely. Clearly, Quinn never wanted things to get this far. On his own government Web site he specifically states not intending to cut educational grant programs and how devastating the aftermath of doing so would be. If only the irony was more amusing.

We propose to you the reality that there is a way to tackle this deficit without costing the youth of this state the education it deserves. While there may be no magical fix to such a predicament, there are other practical options. Gov. Quinn’s proposed $1 cigarette tax is a start.

And what about the state’s bid to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago and the estimated $5 billion price tag it carries? Could the $366 million needed to build a temporary 80,000 seat stadium in Washington Park perhaps be redirected toward a cause that will ultimately last longer than a few weeks? Or are we willing to sacrifice the betterment of our society to attract tourists?

Illinois needs to reassess its priorities, and it all starts with you. If you cut these grants and cost 137,000 students the chance at a better education, you have done a disservice to your community.

At a time when cuts are so prevalent, we challenge you to make an investment.

Invest in us.

Invest in the future, or we may not have one to speak of.

Sincerely,

The Northern Star Editorial Board

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