Elite colleges rejected coronavirus aid. How will the Ed Dept reallocate it? – Education Dive
While federal officials pressured wealthy institutions to turn down their shares of CARES funding, they haven’t come up with a way yet to get the money to schools that need it.
President Donald Trump last week railed against Harvard University, claiming he would personally ensure the institution, with the largest endowment in the U.S., would turn away millions of dollars in federal coronavirus aid it was due. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos followed suit soon after, publicly urging affluent colleges to reject money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
The political pressure worked.
At least seven elite colleges and Strategic Education Inc., the parent company of the for-profit Strayer and Capella universities, turned down the relief. Their shares represent less than half a percent of the $12.6 billion in funding for colleges, but the moves meant more than $56 million would go unclaimed, half of which was statutorily mandated to be passed to students as emergency grants.
Many institutions that decided not to take CARES funding, among them Stanford, Yale and Princeton universities, instead pledged they would use their own funds to help students. But the situation has left the rejected money in limbo with no immediate avenue for the U.S. Department of Education to redistribute it.