"Hundreds of millions of dollars in state financial aid funding for college students are up in the air amid massive budget cuts, and in a doomsday scenario, it could all run out by January," Chi Town Daily News reports. "Last year, the Monetary Award Program handed out $384 million to 145,000 students statewide, including $130 million to students at schools in Chicago. But as the Illinois Student Assistance Commission saw applications for MAP grants for the coming school year increase 30 percent, the department is bracing to get only half of the $440 million it had expected to get. Under the worst-case scenario, students would only get $820 in aid for every $1,000 that had been promised for the fall semester, and no funding in the spring."