Higher Ed IT Funding Request for Federal Emergency Relief Bill

In response to the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, Congress and the Trump Administration negotiated and passed an equally unprecedented $2.2 trillion emergency relief bill in March. The higher education community asked Congress to include approximately $50–$60 billion in the bill to help colleges and universities overcome the financial and operational obstacles they face as a result of the pandemic. A $7.8 billion "technology implementation fund" was a major pillar of that request.¹

EDUCAUSE worked with the American Council on Education (ACE) and other leading higher education associations to rally support for college and university funding in the relief bill. While those efforts did not yield the full amount sought by the higher education community, the approximately $14 billion directly allocated for higher education in the relief package represents a dramatic increase over the few billion dollars that the Senate had originally proposed.²

Through a brief series of messages to the EDUCAUSE CIO Community Group mailing list, EDUCAUSE President John O'Brien kept the community informed of these developments and encouraged member participation in institutional outreach to support the higher education request. I have provided those emails below in chronological order for the record.

EDUCAUSE Action Alert (March 20, 2020)

Campus IT Leaders,

The American Council on Education (ACE) has asked Congress on behalf of the higher education community to include tens of billions of dollars in the next emergency relief bill so institutions can continue serving students through the present crisis. EDUCAUSE has worked with ACE and others to inform that request, which calls for $7.8 billion to support and sustain the rapid transition to remote/online learning.

Congress will be negotiating the bill through the weekend, with an eye toward passing it early next week. ACE and the other presidential associations have asked presidents to contact their senators and members of Congress this weekend at the latest about supporting this proposal.

Action:

• Review the funding summary (https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/Higher-Education-Supplemental-Summary-Memo-031920.pdf)
• Work with your president's office to support your institution's legislative outreach—consider providing concrete examples of your resource challenges to help your president bring the issue home to lawmakers.

Your congressional representatives need to hear your institution's stories about taking courses, programs, and services online in a matter of days—and about the resources needed to scale and sustain those efforts in the weeks and months ahead. CIOs and Senior IT Leaders, please make sure that your president's office knows that you're ready to provide those stories if you haven't already, and thank you for all that you and your staff are doing for higher education.

If you have questions, please contact me ([email protected]).

John

John O'Brien, Ph.D. President and CEO [he, him, his]

 

Update on EDUCAUSE Action Alert (March 23, 2020)

Campus IT Leaders,

As I wrote on Friday [March 20], the higher education community has requested significant financial relief from Congress to help institutions continue serving students through the COVID-19 crisis. (See the letters to the House and Senate that formalize the request shared in my previous alert.) That request includes $7.8 billion to help institutions with transitioning to emergency remote delivery and continuing to evolve toward online learning so they can better support students in the weeks and months ahead.

Senate and House negotiations remain ongoing, so there is still time to connect with your president's office about this request. If you haven't had the chance to do so already, please make sure your president and government relations representatives have the information and stories to inform their congressional outreach. With so many sectors in need of federal assistance, it is vital that Congress understand the difference that the requested aid can make in keeping institutions running and educating students through this difficult time.

Again, if you have questions, please contact me ([email protected]). While negotiations remain stalled, a deal could be reached at any moment, so time is of the essence.

John

 

EDUCAUSE Action Alert Update—Higher Ed Funding in Emergency Spending Bill (March 26, 2020)

EDUCAUSE Colleagues,

The Senate voted last night to pass an unprecedented $2 trillion emergency spending bill, which aims to bolster the healthcare system while lessening the economic damage resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. The House is currently expected to reconvene tomorrow to pass the bill as well. With the spending package now set to become law, I wanted to highlight for you the education funding provisions.

If you've followed previous EDUCAUSE Action Alerts last week [March 20 and 23], the higher education community asked Congress for the following:

• A no-interest loan program that colleges and universities could use to address revenue shortfalls and rapidly growing expenses
• Direct grants to institutions to help them manage the broader effects of the crisis as well as provide emergency aid to students
• A Technology Implementation Fund of $7.8 billion to support institutions in rapidly transitioning to remote delivery of courses and continuing to evolve toward true online learning as the length of the crisis will likely require
• Regulatory relief so that, for example, colleges and universities aren't saddled with new requirements or meeting technical deadlines in existing ones while they are making wholesale changes in response to the crisis

The estimated total cost of the higher education proposal, led by the American Council on Education, is approximately $50 billion. The current bill does not get close to that level, but thanks to the institutional outreach to Congress that many of you supported, higher education did secure a significant down payment on its request.

Total education funding under the bill has been set at roughly $31 billion, of which approximately $3 billion will be divided among the states for allocation to their education sectors based on each state's determination of its needs. Of the remaining $28 billion, approximately $14 billion will go toward higher education emergency relief funding to be distributed by the U.S. Department of Education directly to institutions, with the provision that a college or university must use half of any grant it receives for emergency student aid. Excluding amounts reserved for particularly hard-hit institutions and resource-challenged minority-serving institutions, the Department of Education will distribute approximately $12.6 billion to colleges and universities in general, of which $6.3 billion will be available for a wide range of needs, including "technology costs associated with a transition to distance education."

This does not provide the level of relief that the higher education community believes it needs, nor does it address the specific technology funding request that EDUCAUSE worked with members and partners to inform. However, the fact that the Senate's original proposal included less than half of the higher education funding it has now approved illustrates the impact that higher education outreach had on the process. Thank you again for working with your institutional leadership in whatever way you could to contribute to that process.

Congress will likely try to pass additional emergency spending measures in the near future as the situation continues to unfold. EDUCAUSE is committed to working with the higher education community as a whole to push for the additional federal support that colleges and universities need. We will update you as those processes develop as well as seek your help in making sure that higher education's technology needs remain a priority in them.

Thank you again for all you are doing to make higher education possible in these difficult times, and please keep in touch.

John

Notes

1. American Council on Education, "ACE, Other Higher Ed Groups Ask Congress to Support Students and Institutions in Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic," March 22, 2020. ↩
2. American Council on Education, "Summary of Higher Education Provisions in H.R. 748, The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act," March 26, 2020. ↩

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Jarret Cummings is Senior Advisor for Policy and Government Relations at EDUCAUSE.