Striking disparity in virus relief funding
Ualbany got $963 per pupil while another N.Y. school received $16,667 per student
When the letter came informing James Dexter that the U.S. Department of Education would be sending his 30-student nursing program $500,000 in coronavirus aid, Dexter was stunned.
The funding translated to $16,667 for each student in the nursing program of the Washington-saratoga-warren-hamilton-essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
“I had to look three times,” said Dexter, the organization’s CEO. “It is so unusual for our little small program to be getting such a big allocation.”
Meanwhile, in the neighboring county to the south, the University at Albany was informed by the Department of Education it would receive $16.85 million in coronavirus relief. The university serves 17,500 students. That’s $963 per pupil.
The striking disparity in aid is a result of how the DOE distributed a portion of the $14 billion in higher education relief that Congress approved to help schools struggling to support their students and institutions during the pandemic. The legislation was written in a hurry and the department has moved fast to get money out the door as quickly as possible. But the inconsistent distribution has created a scenario where some small schools say they will eventually return funds to the DOE, while larger colleges and universities are desperate for more relief.
While most of the money was distributed via a formula that accounted for a school’s enrollment and population of low-income students, about $350 million was earmarked for hundreds of the smallest schools in America so that every not-for-profit higher education institution that teaches students in person received at least $500,000 in coronavirus aid.
In order to receive the funding, an institution will need to request it, a DOE spokesman said. Once the requests are processed, the remaining money will be distributed through a competitive grant process.
Ben Miller, vice president
of post-secondary education at the liberal think-tank Center for American Progress, said that’s not how Congress planned for this $350 million to be used. He called it “a complete screw up.”
“It was supposed to go to places that demonstrated a lot of need and within that, they were supposed to give priority to smaller colleges,” Miller said. “The department just basically blew past any of the requirements around demonstrating need.”
Jason Delisle, resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the bill was written to suggest $500,000 was a mandatory minimum for college aid, while allowing DOE discretion. DOE “took a pass on using discretion,” he said.
“Doing something else, while obviously it would prevent extreme cases like you’re talking about, would take a lot of time,” Delisle said. “This has to fall on Congress. … They could have written a formula spelling out how they wanted the money allocated.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-tenn., who chairs the Senate committee on education, countered that Education Secretary Betsy Devos is “doing a good job implementing the law the way Congress wrote it.”
“Where Congress gave the secretary discretion, or minimal direction, she is taking reasonable steps to implement the law fairly, effectively and efficiently,” Alexander said.
But Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, urged Devos to reverse this distribution.
“This decision is
unacceptable and will be detrimental to students at institutions significantly impacted by COVID-19, many of which are in desperate need of relief,” she wrote to Devos.
Rep. Paul Tonko, D-amsterdam, called for oversight and hearings over how higher education funds are being distributed.
“If we’re not reaching the most schools and the most students who are most in need, then we failed,” he said.
As a result of the DOE’S choice, 121 of the smallest post-secondary schools in New York could receive $500,000 in aid. They are yeshivas, seminaries, certificate programs and small graduate schools. Seventyeight of them serve fewer than 200 students; 40 serve fewer than 100.
The smallest appears to the Talmudical Institute of Upstate New York, in Rochester, which had six students enrolled, according to most recent data from the DOE. That’s $83,334 per pupil in aid. The school did not respond to a request for comment.
One school that is slated to get $500,000 in aid is Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, which has 26 seminarians enrolled and is slated to close at the end of the school year amid allegations of sexual misconduct and severe financial deficits. The seminary does not intend to accept the funds, said Greg Tucker, interim communications
director for the Diocese of Buffalo.
Mary Beth Labate, president of the Commission of Independent Colleges and Universities in New York, said she was glad to see that their smaller member schools were not left behind in the CARES Act.
Albany Law School, with 487 students, was made eligible for $500,000. It will give grants to low-income students who have been hurt financially due to coronavirus and pay for the cost of moving instruction online and protecting students’ and faculty health. Albany Law spokesman Chris Colton said $500,000 will only cover a “fraction” of those costs.
The nursing schools at St. Peter’s Hospital and Samaritan Hospital are also eligible. They will use the funds to award student grants and repurchase supplies like personal protective equipment that were donated, said Courtney Weisberg, a spokeswoman for St. Peter’s Health Partners.
Dexter said he will use the $500,000 for the BOCES nursing program similarly. The program is not likely to spend the entire $500,000 and may end up returning some of the funds to the DOE, he said.
In contrast, larger colleges and universities said the aid they are receiving hardly makes a dent in their forecasted losses.
University at Albany spokesman Jordan Carleoevangelist said the school was crediting or refunding to students an estimated $22.4 million in room-andboard fees for the spring semester.
“While the CARES Act money is important, and
a welcome start, it only covers a fraction of the revenue lost by colleges and universities, to say nothing of the significant unbudgeted costs associated with responding to the virus,” he said.
The university incurred major expenses upgrading technology for remote learning, acquiring personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies and picking up the cost to host a state-sponsored COVID-19 testing site on campus, Carleo-evangelist said.
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, with 2,860 students, had to refund $4.5 million in room and board costs, said spokeswoman Sara Miga. The college also canceled all on-campus summer programs resulting in a loss of just over $2 million in net revenue. The school will get $1.6 million in funds from the CARES Act, or $573 per pupil.
The College of Saint Rose in Albany, with 4,619 students, saw $3.1 million in room-and-board losses, paired with further losses from canceled events and new costs associated with remote instruction, college spokeswoman Jennifer Gish said. The school will receive $3.6 million in federal relief, or $789 per pupil.
About half of the coronavirus relief that larger colleges and universities receive must be spent on emergency grants to low-income students with demonstrated coronavirus-related needs. Only students eligible for federal student aid programs can apply, excluding international and undocumented students.
Saint Rose received
more than 1,500 applications from over 2,700 eligible students, Gish said. Skidmore had awarded $313,829 to 227 students, as of May 14, Miga said.
After distributing those student grants, the schools can access the second half of their funds — institutional relief that can be used to defray expenses and lost revenues.
Some wealthy private schools with large endowments, like Harvard and Yale Universities, rejected the federal funding allocated for them, following public pressure. Columbia University has indicated it plans to use the funds. Cornell University said it will use all the funds to support students — not just half.
Education groups applaud the higher education funding in the CARES Act, but say they need more. Labate called $14 billion divvied among thousands of schools “the tip of the iceberg.”
Debate over further coronavirus relief legislation has stalled in Congress as Senate Republicans urge a “pause” as funds from earlier legislation continue to be distributed. House Democrats proposed another $37 billion for higher education in the Heroes Act passed May 15. That’s far short of the $46.6 billion the American Council on Education and 40 other higher education organizations requested from Congress.
Many colleges foresee enrollment declines in their future, as well as ongoing health- and technology-related costs. Strangled state budgets could pose greater challenges for public colleges and universities.