Moneyman's College Financial Aid Blog

IMPORTANT NOTE: The guidance in this post was contradicted by later guidance from the Department of Education. See here for the most recent guidance. This post is left as it was originally published for historical purposes.

With apologies to Paul Revere. He was much more concerned with the Redcoats (aka the British). Today, we’re much more focused on the “greenbacks” – aka the moolah, the Benjamins, the bread, the dough, (I could go on like this for a while) – or to put it simply, the money.

As in, when will the money from the CARES Act (which I discussed here) and how will students apply for it and receive it?

Well, your friend moneyman has some answers, and lots of questions. Here goes!

On Thursday afternoon, Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, released a letter to college presidents (and copied to Directors of Financial Aid and Chief Financial Officers) nationwide explaining that the Department of Education was putting a priority on delivering 1/2 of the Emergency Stabilization Funds that were promised by the CARES Act to schools. Which half? The half that is going to students!

If you remember, this money has to be spent on students to help with expenses related to their education moving online (from the Act – “…expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to coronavirus (including eligible expenses under a student’s cost of attendance, such as food, housing, course materials, technology, health care, and child care).”)

So how much will colleges receive? Take a look at the list provided by the Department of Education to find your school to see how much your school is receiving (and remember that the list is in school code order). The list shows both the total allocation as well as the amount specifically for students. If you are interested to see how these amounts were calculated, you can find the answer here.

The amounts are large here, but what does it mean for an individual student? So while the agreements that schools have to sign to receive this money (and the money will be available as soon as Wednesday) are also published, there are very few limitations on how the school can award this money.

For example, students don’t have to file a FAFSA to qualify. You don’t have to show financial need, and you don’t even need to be a US Citizen (or Permanent Resident). These funds can be awarded by schools to any attending student therefore, and in addition any amount awarded doesn’t have to follow the normal rules for overaward (or scholarship displacement). So the money gets to go straight to the student and will have no impact on other financial aid.

There is also no limit or requirement placed on the amount of the award which a school can make for a student (although the Secretary recommends no more than the Pell Grant maximum – currently $6,195). The funds must be spent by the college within one year of the date they sign the acknowledgement form.

So to go back to the main question, how do students apply for these funds?

The Secretary doesn’t specify and schools can choose their own process. Schools can also decide how they want to apply these funds (tuition, technology costs, fees, textbooks, etc). This means that for students you are going to need to speak with your individual financial aid office to find out how they are planning on offering this aid, and that there may be a delay while your school figures it out.

At moneyman’s college we are carefully examining the rules and options for these funds and will probably have a combination of some kind of online application for funds, and some categories where we will automatically award funds to students. We will hope to have some decisions in the next week.

So if you are a student, and you need some emergency funds, moneyman’s best advice right now is to be in touch with your school’s financial aid office and let them know that you have need for funds. Ask if you can be placed on a waiting list, or if there is some kind of application you can add your name to. There will be more information coming from your school, you can be sure!!

In the meantime, what other questions do you have?