The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security CARES Act allocated about $14 billion to colleges ... [+]
The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, allocated about $14 billion to American colleges and universities, of which approximately $6.3 billion must go to students who are impacted financially by the coronavirus. The total amount of stimulus a given college receives is based on enrollment, with a 75% weighting given to the number of full-time students eligible for Pell Grants.
At least half of an institution’s allocation must be used for emergency grants given to students, but the other half can be used to cover un-budgeted institutional expenses related to the coronavirus. Colleges and universities have discretion for how to spend this half, subject to guidance from the U. S. Department or Education.
It’s up to individual institutions themselves to determine which students receive the money and how much they receive, but the Department of Education Department intended the funding to help financially needy students pay for course materials, food, housing and health care, among other things.
Despite good intentions, CARES money is getting to students very slowly, or at some schools not at all. The Department of Eduction has given confusing or vague guidance to institutions. Colleges, in turn, have been wary of doling out the money only to later learn that the federal government dispapproved of its methodology. And finally, many institutions continue to debate about the best way to distribute the funding - either through an application process requiring students to justify their need or a formula assigning a specific amount to all students below some income threshold.
As an indication of how leading American colleges were spending - or not spending - their CARES funding, here is a review of the status of those funds as of May 4 at the Forbes list of the top-25 colleges (excluding the Naval Academy).
Universities rejecting CARES funding
Several elite schools, particularly those with large endowments, have already turned down CARES funding. Their reasons for refusing the stimulus money run the gamut of motives, but clearly a major concern was avoiding the negative perception - drummed up by many politicians - of taxpayer money being used to “bail out” wealthy colleges.
Senate Republicans have now introduced a bill that would prohibit universities with endowments greater than $10 billion from receiving funds from the CARES Act unless they spend 10 times their federal allocation from their own funds and devote that money to the emergency student assistance grants required by CARES. The bill was introduced by Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, never one hesitant to demagogue the kind of elite institutions he himself attended.
More than a third of the Forbes Top 25 colleges have turned down $57 million in CARES money, with many indicating they would provide additional financial aid to students from institutional funds instead. However, the Department of Education has no present plan for how to redistribute the money that’s been rejected, and few observers are optimistic it will come up with any strategy soon.
University of Pennsylvania - $9.9 million.
Harvard - $8.7 million. Harvard initially indicted its full CARES’s allocation would be given as financial aid to students. It ultimately reversed that decision in the face of political pressure to reject the funding, including criticism from President Trump, who, despite mistaking the federal source of Harvard’s allocation, objected to it nonetheless. Predictably, Education Secretary Betsy Devos echoed that sentiment, claiming that “wealthy universities... do not need or deserve additional taxpayer funds.”
Northwestern University - $8.5 million.
Stanford - $7.4 million.
Yale - $6.8 million. Yale asked the Department of Education to use its portion of the funding to support colleges and universities in Connecticut whose viability is threatened by the current crisis.
Duke - $6.7 million.
Notre Dame - $5.8 million. After initially indicating it would use all of its CARES allocation exclusively to help students, Notre Dame reversed field and said it would not take the
Princeton - $2.4 million.
California Institute of Technology - $.9 million.
Universities Making Allocation Decisions
Cornell - $ 12.8 million. The university indicated that it would allocate all of its funding - not just the required half - to assist students in need of aid.
Universities With No Decision Yet
The majority of colleges on the top-25 list have either not yet indicated if they would accept their CARES stimulus, or if they did accept it, how they would distribute the portion that must go to emergency student grants. The institutions and their allocations are as follows:
University of California, Berkeley - $30.4 million.
University of Michigan - $25.2 million.
Columbia - $12.8 million.
Johns Hopkins - $6.3 million.
University of Chicago - $6.2 million.
Georgetown University - $6.1 million.
MIT - $5 million.
Brown - $4.8 million.
Dartmouth - $3.4 million
Rice - $3.4 million.
Williams College - $1.6 million.
Pomona College - $1.3 million.
Swarthmore College- $1.2 million.
Harvey Mudd College - $.5 million.
Regardless of your opinion about whether elite colleges should receive or reject CARES funding, it’s disconcerting that this much money - targeted for needy students - remains in bureaucratic limbo, doing no one no good. Given the Trump administration’s ineptness and penchant for vindictiveness, this sad result was foredained. Much of the funding desperately needed by college students is stalled, a victim of executive branch incompetence and institutional fear of reprisal.
