ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Steps are being taken in Illinois to improve funding for higher education. Sen. Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island, who was recently appointed chair of the Illinois Senate Higher Education Committee, is making visits to various institutions.
He met with Augustana President Andrea Talentino to talk about how higher education can be made more accessible and affordable for everyone.
"(Illinois) is really making some good fiscal decisions to the point where we have the opportunity to reinvest in higher education," Halpin said.
Amongst those fiscal decisions is Gov. J.B. Pritzker's proposal to increase the Monetary Award Program, or "MAP grants" for short, to $701 million. That's a 75% increase from 2019.
"That MAP grant is incredibly essential, because it fills up a big part of what would otherwise fall on families, and allows them to have a much smaller family contribution," Talentino said.
"I can't tell you the number of times I've had a student tell me, I would not have gone to college, if not for the MAP grant," Halpin added.
Once students are in the door, it's a matter of making the transition from college to the workforce seamless.
"I want us as a state to be able to anticipate where those next time demand jobs are going to be and react quicker so we don't end up in such a hole when it comes to a lack of any particular profession," Halpin said.
Talentino said nursing is a program that Augustana is developing by building partnerships with area hospitals so more nurses will be in the pipeline.
News 8's Joe McCoy asked Halpin how Illinois plans to predict what jobs will have a shortage in the future, and he said it's a matter of bringing in the board of higher education and the Department of Labor, who have data and can track job trends.
Halpin added that if the state does everything right, almost every person that wants to attend community college will be able to for free, and that roughly 40% of people who want to go to a four-year institution will essentially go for free.