About 138,000 college students will be able to return to college for the spring semester now that Gov. Quinn has signed a law to increase funding for the Illinois Monetary Award Program (MAP), which helps financially needy students obtain post-secondary training and skills.

Senate Bill 1180 was signed into law Monday. The additional funding added to MAP is effective immediately.

The enactment of the law comes just a week after 50 Saint Xavier University students traveled to the Illinois state capitol to attend a rally urging legislators to restore the funding.

“Politicians are always stressing that the young people of today need a good education, but they are making it almost impossible," said SXU student John Piekos. "My parents are already helping me out, but they have bills and two other sons to help."

State Rep. Kevin Joyce helped pass legislation during the first week of the fall session that will increase funding for MAP.

"A college education should not be limited only to those who have the ability to pay," Joyce said. "Education is opportunity, and all students deserve the opportunity to learn."

The law appropriates $205 million to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission for the Monetary Award Program and various other higher education expense lines. MAP remains the largest state-funded program based on need-based grant aid in the country.

Forty-one percent of Saint Xavier University undergraduates depend on MAP grants as of the 2009 Fall semester, amounting to an average of $4,492 per student for the academic year.