Thank you to Illinois State Senator Sara Feigenholtz and State Representative Kam Buckner whose sponsorship of Senate Bill 3138 (SB 3188), an NASW-IL initiative, helped it to pass out of the Illinois House last week and now awaits the governor’s signature, thus ensuring that financial assistance remains intact for former abused and neglected Illinois children in their pursuit of higher education.
Currently there exists GPA criteria required by DCFS to maintain eligibility of scholarships provided by the department for former foster children, creating potential loss of financial aid assistance to these students who may be experiencing challenging academic semesters. SB 3188 would remove the GPA requirement to permit these students to retain their scholarships and waivers, thereby ensuring consistency for these former foster youth.
Furthermore, most students who did not receive the scholarship were eligible for the tuition waiver program. This program waives all dollars for tuition after their MAP and PEL grants are applied. SB 3188 removes the PEL grant from being applied before the waiver and instead allows the student to keep their PEL grant to help with costs like housing and books.
This bill was one of many the NASW-Illinois Chapter pushed for and was tracking during the spring legislative session. For the latest, check out the NASW-IL Bill Tracker which shows all of the bills we are currently tracking.
For more advocacy-related news from the NASW-Illinois Chapter, visit the "Advocacy" sub-tab on our "News" page.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with over 120,000 members. The NASW-Illinois Chapter is one of the association's largest chapters representing over 20,000 licensed Illinois social workers and school social workers, with over 5,000 active members. NASW strives to advance social work careers, grow social work businesses, and protect the profession.