To hear Gov. Pat Quinn tell it, the General Assembly failed tens of thousands of would-be college students by slashing funding for a financial aid program.
For more than a month, Quinn has crisscrossed Illinois, promising to push lawmakers to find $200 million for the Monetary Award Program and chastising them for leaving 137,000 students wondering if they'll be able to pay tuition next spring -- even though he helped create the problem.
"It's not fair at all," said Kent Redfield, an emeritus political science professor at the University Illinois-Springfield. "It's the governor's budget, he signed off on it. There was clearly enough discretionary spending in what the governor signed off on to cover this."
Redfield's comments were featured in an October 14, 2009 Associated Press article, which was published in the Chicago Tribune and State Journal-Register.
Download a PDF of the article.
20091014-Trib-chi-ap-il-quinn-higheredmon%2C.pdf
