House Education Committee Chair, Representative Bobby Scott, proposed an additional $ 40 billion in coronavirus aid to colleges and universities, a slight increase over the $ 35 billion proposed by President Biden, but still less than half of what the institutions asked Congress to do.
The proposal is likely to be approved by the committee’s Democratic majority today and included in the $ 1.9 trillion aid proposal. Congressional Democrats are working to enforce Congress through a budget process that does not require Republican support.
The proposal from Scott, a Democratic Congressman from Virginia, would fail to meet the $ 97 billion in aid agencies representing colleges and universities to cover losses to their institutions during the pandemic. It does, however, provide an incentive for states facing their own budget constraints not to cut university funding. Countries receiving education grants under the package would have to agree to spend at least the same portion of their budget on higher education as the average in 2017, 2018 and 2019. However, the Minister of Education could apologize to states if they need to because of the pandemic To make cuts.
Although the proposal is part of a law aimed at providing relief during the pandemic, it includes several policy changes that the Democrats are seeking. It would no longer allow For-Profits to count GI bill dollars against a federal requirement that at least 10 percent of their income be non-federal. Critics have long pushed for the change, saying that counting the money to meet the requirement is a for-profit incentive to target and sometimes cheat veterans and service members.
In a move away from previous aid packages passed during the Trump administration, the proposal would allow undocumented and international students to receive emergency student scholarships. “The institutions will be solely responsible for determining which students will receive emergency financial aid,” the proposal said.
The proposal also provides security to private universities who were concerned that they would not receive additional help. Scott’s proposal would redistribute the money in the same way as previous aid packages that sent aid to private agencies and refers to “public and private nonprofits”.
In addition, the proposal restores aid to institutes with large foundations. Colleges and universities, which must pay 1.4 percent excise tax on net investment income, have been removed from the bill approved by Congress and President Trump in December. You would be entitled to help with this passage.
For nonprofits, however, their share of aid would decrease from 3 percent to 1 percent, and they could only spend their funds on emergency grants to students.