State Scholarships Help Future Illinois Teachers

SPRINGFIELD – As the State of Illinois gears up to address a shortage of qualified teachers, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) is helping future teachers receive their degrees and enter Illinois classrooms.

As the State’s centralized agency for administering student financial aid programs, ISAC administers several teacher incentive programs, all of which are aimed at recruiting and retaining quality teachers for Illinois classrooms, especially in subject matter shortage areas.

ISAC expects to award teacher incentive scholarships to over 1,400 qualified students this year.Students may be eligible to receive an ITEACH Teacher Shortage Scholarship, Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship, or Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver.

The ITEACH Teacher Shortage Scholarship, formerly known as the David A. DeBolt Teacher Shortage Scholarship, provides scholarships up to $5,000 annually to students preparing to become teachers in subject matter areas designated as teacher shortage disciplines by the Illinois State Board of Education.While the qualifying disciplines vary each year, the current shortage disciplines include mathematics, science, bilingual education, music, physical education, and the special education categories of speech and language impaired, behavior disordered, and learning disabled, and cross-categorical areas.

ISAC’s Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program (MTI) targets minority students studying to become teachers, with the goal of increasing the number of qualified minority teachers in Illinois elementary and secondary schools.Eligible applicants can also receive up to $5,000 per year in scholarship assistance.

The Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver program (SETTW) offers tuition waivers at public universities to 250 students studying to become teachers in a special education field.

By law, any recipient of an ITEACH or MTI scholarship must sign a contract pledging to teach in Illinois after they graduate, for at least one year for each year of scholarship assistance received.ITEACH recipients must teach in the subject shortage field for which they studied, and MTI recipients must teach in a school at which at least thirty percent of the students enrolled are minority students.SETTW recipients pledge to teach in Illinois after graduation, as well.If recipients do not fulfill their teaching obligations, the scholarships convert to loans and must be repaid with interest.

In addition to the state-funded programs, eligible teachers can take advantage of a federal initiative through which student loan forgiveness is offered to borrowers who major in education and go on to teach in a low-income community.Specifically, the federal government will forgive up to $5,000 of a teacher’s federally reinsure educational loans if he/she teaches for five consecutive years in a school serving a low-income area.Teachers who borrowed student loans after October 1, 1998 and feel they may be eligible for the loan forgiveness program should contact their lender.

“Federal initiatives like loan forgiveness can be effectively supplemented at the state level to both recruit qualified students to enroll in teacher education programs, and equally important, persuade these same students to pursue their teaching careers in Illinois,” explained Larry Matejka, ISAC’s Executive Director.

In fact, ISAC has initiated a new matching grant program for Illinois teachers who benefit from the federal loan cancellation program.Teachers who qualify for the federal Stafford Loan Cancellation for Teachers program by teaching in an Illinois low-income school can receive an additional matching grant up to $5,000 through the Illinois Teacher and Child Care Provider Loan Repayment Program.

Applications for the 2003-2004 teacher incentive programs are now available.Priority consideration for the scholarship programs will be given to applications received by March 1, 2003. Students and families interested in receiving an application or learning more about ISAC’s programs should contact the agency at 800-899-ISAC (4722) or visit the Web site at http://www.collegezone.com.  Bilingual telephone representatives are available.

About ISAC
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission is the State’s centralized provider of financial assistance aimed at helping students and families access postsecondary education and/or training. Each year, the Commission awards an estimated $400 million in scholarship and grant aid to nearly 185,000 qualified students, and also provides an additional $740 million to borrowers through its student loan programs. The agency offers credit-based alternative loans, a 529 prepaid tuition program known as College Illinois!, and a broad array of outreach and informational services to ensure that families have access to the information they need to pay for a college education. More information is available by calling toll-free 800.899.ISAC (4722) or visiting the agency’s Web site at www.collegezone.com.