1. (a) Five hundred new scholarships shall be provided each year for qualified high school students or high school graduates who desire to pursue full-time undergraduate studies in teacher education at public or private universities or colleges and community colleges in this State. The Commission, in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated for this program, shall provide funding and shall designate each year's new recipients from among those applicants who qualify for consideration by showing:

   1. (1) that he or she is a resident of this State and a citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States;
   2. (2) that he or she has successfully completed the program of instruction at an approved high school or is a student in good standing at such a school and is engaged in a program that will be completed by the end of the academic year, and in either event that his or her cumulative grade average was or is in the upper 1/4 of the high school class;
   3. (3) that he or she has superior capacity to profit by a higher education; and

   4. (4) that he or she agrees to teach in Illinois schools in accordance with subsection (b). No rule or regulation promulgated by the State Board of Education prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1993 pursuant to the exercise of any right, power, duty, responsibility or matter of pending business transferred from the State Board of Education to the Commission under this Section shall be affected thereby, and all such rules and regulations shall become the rules and regulations of the Commission until modified or changed by the Commission in accordance with law.

      If in any year the number of qualified applicants exceeds the number of scholarships to be awarded, the Commission shall give priority in awarding scholarships to students in financial need. The Commission shall consider factors such as the applicant's family income, the size of the applicant's family and the number of other children in the applicant's family attending college in determining the financial need of the individual.

      Unless otherwise indicated, these scholarships shall be good for a period of up to 4 years while the recipient is enrolled for residence credit at a public or private university or college or at a community college. The scholarship shall cover tuition, fees and a stipend of $1,500 per year. For purposes of calculating scholarship awards for recipients attending private universities or colleges, tuition and fees for students at private colleges and universities shall not exceed the average tuition and fees for students at 4-year public colleges and universities for the academic year in which the scholarship is made.

2. (b) Upon graduation from or termination of enrollment in a teacher education program, any person who accepted a scholarship under the undergraduate scholarship program continued by this Section, including persons whose graduation or termination of enrollment occurred prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1993, shall teach in any school in this State for at least 4 of the 7 years immediately following his or her graduation or termination. If the recipient spends up to 4 years in military service before or after he or she graduates, the period of military service shall be excluded from the computation of that 7 year period. A recipient who is enrolled full-time in an academic program leading to a graduate degree in education shall have the period of graduate study excluded from the computation of that 7 year period.

   Any person who fails to fulfill the teaching requirement shall pay to the Commission an amount equal to one-fourth of the scholarship received for each unfulfilled year of the 4-year teaching requirement, together with interest at 8% per year on that amount. However, this obligation to repay does not apply when the failure to fulfill the teaching requirement results from involuntarily leaving the profession due to a decrease in the number of teachers employed by the school board or a discontinuation of a type of teaching service under Section 24-12 of the School Code or from the death or adjudication as incompetent of the person holding the scholarship. No claim for repayment may be filed against the estate of such a decedent or incompetent.

   Each person applying for such a scholarship shall be provided with a copy of this subsection at the time he or she applies for the benefits of such scholarship.

3. (c) This Section is substantially the same as Sections 30-14.5 and 30-14.6 of the School Code, which are repealed by this amendatory Act of 1993, and shall be construed as a continuation of the teacher training undergraduate scholarship program established by that prior law, and not as a new or different teacher training undergraduate scholarship program. The State Board of Education shall transfer to the Commission, as the successor to the State Board of Education for all purposes of administering and implementing the provisions of this Section, all books, accounts, records, papers, documents, contracts, agreements, and pending business in any way relating to the teacher training undergraduate scholarship program continued under this Section, and all scholarships at any time awarded under that program by, and all applications for any such scholarship at any time made to, the State Board of Education shall be unaffected by the transfer to the Commission of all responsibility for the administration and implementation of the teacher training undergraduate scholarship program continued under this Section. The State Board of Education shall furnish to the Commission such other information as the Commission may request to assist it in administering this Section.

(Source: P.A. 102-1030, eff. 5-27-22.)