The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Colleges say stimulus relief needed, but not enough
The $133.9 million coming to the state’s 63 higher education institutions through the federal emergency relief package is seen by some local college officials as a Band-aid on a wound that is still bleeding.
“While needed and helpful, it won’t even cover half of the immediate expenses incurred; let alone the anticipated losses in the summer and the fall,” said Jennifer Widness of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, which represents 15 private colleges and universities in the state.
The same is being said by public college officials in the state.
Even before the pandemic forced colleges statewide to empty campuses and move courses online, the Connecticut State College and University system was nursing an operating deficit of $7 to $8 million.
“To make us whole, I think it is going to take a lot more than we have seen so far,” said Mark Ojakian, the CSCU system president. “To be able to put our institutions on sustainable path.”
Nationwide, the federal stimulus package has $14 billion earmarked for higher education. Far less than the $50 billion higher education advocates said was needed.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called it woefully inadequate.
“The assistance included in the measure for students and institutions is far below what is required to respond to the financial disaster confronting them,” Mitchell said.
In addition to direct aid to colleges, the bipartisan stimulus package suspends student-loan payments through September. It will continues to release federal work-study funds to students and there is a temporary suspension of wage garnishments for defaulted student loans.
But it also excludes college students, even if they are wage earners, from collecting a stimulus check if they are still claimed as dependents on their parents’ income taxes.
Widness predicts the coronavirus pandemic will forever change higher education institutions. For the good and for the bad.
“On the positive side, institutions proved they can be more innovative, nimble and responsive in a way that no one could have imagined,” Widness said. “In a matter of days they set up an infrastructure to continue to support learning all across the state and around the country.”
Other campuses have become field hospitals.
At Southern Connecticut State University, a 250-bed medical station has been erected to help with nonCOVID-19 patients as the coronavirus pandemic worsens.
Doing so, Ojakian said on a conference call Thursday hosted by Education Reform Now CT, did not come without cost.
The system, he said, is keeping track of every expenditure it is making as a result of the crisis.
Ben Barnes, chief financial officer for the system, called the stimulus aid a big drop in the bucket but not enough to meet all the demands the system’s 17 colleges and universities now face.
“Our universities alone this week provided refunds in the amount of $24.5 million (for room and board),” Barnes said.
Converting all courses online cost money. Helping students move off campus on a dime cost money. The inability to recruit students properly for the summer and fall is bound to eat into projected budget revenues.
Compare that with the $55.8 million Barnes has calculated the system expects it will receive from the stimulus package — $29.3 million for community colleges and $26.5 million for universities.
Half of that money will go toward the institutional response to COVID-19, the rest toward emergency financial aid for students.
“We remain optimistic,” Barnes said, adding analyzing the full picture will take months it not years..
At the University of Connecticut, there is also uncertainty as officials review the act’s implications at the university and UConn Health.
An Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ analysis of the bill estimates that UConn will receive about $10.8 million in institutional aid and about $10.8 million for students.
For UConn Health, $100 billion has been allocated for the hospital’s health care providers nationwide to provide reimbursement for expenses or lost revenues attributable to COVID-19.
“We don’t yet know ...(how much or) when the funds (to UConn) might be available, and the additional financial support potentially provided through increased funding under Medicare and Medicaid,” said Stephanie Reitz, a university spokeswoman.
Widness said the fiscal impact will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the 15 private, non-profit institutions in the state.
At the University of New Haven, Widness estimates the immediate lost of revenue through June 2020 to be about $15 million. It is estimated UNH will get about $4.6 million through the stimulus bill.
For several weeks, University of Bridgeport President Laura Trombley — who quit her job on Thursday — was sounding the alarm in nightly messages sent to the university community. She called the amount of federal funding for higher education being discussed “too little” and said the pandemic had brought many fragile organizations to the brink.
Stephen Healey, now UB’s acting president, said it is a challenge being faced by every higher education institution.
At Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Phil McCabe, vice president for finance, said the private Catholic institution expects to receive between $3.5 and $4 million through the stimulus package.
“Certainly helpful, but (it) will not make us whole,” McCabe said in a statement. “There still will be a substantial gap that we are addressing internally.”
At Fairfield University, Jennifer Anderson, vice president of marketing and communications, said the amount received will certainly help to offset a portion of costs Fairfield has incurred during this pandemic. But not all of it.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumethal’s office said the amount in the package for higher education is higher than what Republicans proposed.
“We know this will be an ongoing process and there will be more packages in the future where we can hopefully secure more funding for educational entities,” his office said.
State Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, co-chair of the legislature’s higher education committee, said while he is tremendously grateful for the $133 million in federal relief aid to higher education, he too wishes it were more.
He does like that half of the money will go to student aid.
“My approach is let’s see what feds provide and wherever the feds fall short. It’s our job at the state level to step up to the plate and make sure our constituents don’t fall through the cracks,” Haskell said. “Our job on state will be to fill in the holes.”
lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck