Senate stimulus package calls for more than $30 billion in emergency education funds
The U.S. Senate's stimulus package would provide billions of dollars more in emergency aid for schools compared with the Republican version circulated earlier this week, while seeking to give student loan borrowers a pause in payments without penalty.
Roll Call reports that the bill would provide $30.9 billion to the Education Department, including an “Education Stabilization Fund,” with specific allocations to support elementary and secondary schools as well as higher education institutions, according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary.
Among its key provisions, the bill would suspend monthly payments on federally held student loans through September, with no interest accruing during that suspension.
The House is expected to vote Friday on the stimulus legislation.
Under the stabilization fund, $3 billion would be set aside for emergency relief funds that governors could use for schools most severely affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Another $13.5 billion would go toward elementary and secondary school relief, most of which would be designated in the form of subgrants to individual schools.
The bill also would set aside $14.3 billion for direct grants to higher education institutions.
The legislation includes several waivers designed to provide colleges flexibility under federal education law as they move operations online. It would allow the continuation of work-study payments to students unable to work because of the crisis as well as the exemption of disrupted school semesters from students’ federal Pell Grant limits and consideration for subsidized loans.
The bill grants broad waiver authority to the Education Department to waive requirements under various federal elementary and secondary education laws related to assessments, accountability, and reporting requirements.
Head Start would get an infusion of $750 million for additional staffing, and $3.5 billion would be directed to the Child Care Development Block Grant program to help support working health care providers and first responders.
A stimulus bill introduced by House Democrats would allocate $60 billion in education emergency funding that could be used to cover the costs of cleaning and sanitizing schools, purchasing educational technology, training educators to use online learning tools, and providing students emergency funding for food, housing, and other basic essentials.
It would also grant $9.5 billion in relief funding for institutions of higher education.
Under the House bill, the Education Department would make all monthly payments on federally held student loans for the duration of the national emergency, providing all borrowers with at least $10,000 in debt relief. It would also halt all involuntary collection of student loan debt, including wage garnishment and tax refund offset.
