Jones-Backed Legislation Expanding Higher Education Opportunities Now Law

CALUMET CITY, Ill. – Students and their families will have easier access to college education under a new law supported by state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, establishing the Illinois Higher Education Saving Program.

“Every kid in our community deserves the opportunity to go to college, not just those lucky enough to be born wealthy,” Jones said. “Higher education and economic opportunity will always be tightly connected; restricting one is restricting the other. If children in poorer families can’t go to a good college, some job prospects that are closed to them. I’m committed to breaking down barriers to higher education because that education is necessary for a better, more economically secure life, and a stronger Illinois.”

Jones passed House Bill 2237 to establish the Illinois Higher Education Saving Program. This program will facilitate saving for college for all children born after December 31, 2020 by opening an omnibus account to hold all contributions to higher education savings, all interest earned on those contributions and $50 in seed money for each participating child. All children born to parents who are residents of Illinois are eligible for the program. The bill was recently signed into law.

“This law is necessary to help middle-class families as well,” Jones said. “Many of the students who end up in a four-year college or university are graduating into decades of debt because they’ve had to take out huge loans. Our kids deserve lives full of potential, not lives where they are tagged with restrictive loan payments that keep them from building a future.”