San Antonio Express-News: Latest COVID relief steering $236 million to higher ed in San Antonio, much of it for students

San Antonio-area colleges and universities expect to receive nearly $236 million from the latest round of federal COVID-19 relief funds, and if previous rules apply, at least half of it is destined for direct aid to students.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Joe Biden last week includes $40 billion for the nation's colleges and universities through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund.

The largest amounts would go to the Alamo Colleges District at $99.6 million, the University of Texas at San Antonio with $86.5 million, and Texas A&M San Antonio with $19.1 million, under preliminary estimates released by the office of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

"This further investment in U.S. higher education is most welcome," UTSA President Taylor Eighmy said in a prepared statement. "We know how critical the student emergency financial aid components are for our students and will work to get those dollars to our students as soon as possible."

The money is meant to supplement coronavirus-related expenses for public and private higher education institutions. But at least half of the aid must go to "students whose lives have been disrupted, many of whom are facing financial challenges and struggling to make ends meet," according to U.S. Department of Education guidelines for previous rounds of aid.

At Alamo Colleges, the funds will be distributed among its five colleges — San Antonio, Saint Philip's, Palo Alto, Northwest Vista and Northeast Lakeview.

"Out of what we are getting, about $48 million of that is going to go directly to student emergency aid," said Mike Flores, the college district's chancellor. "Our students already are on the margins. They are supporting themselves and often others, and they are living paycheck to paycheck."

The grants will be distributed to students who already receive financial aid to pay for college and to those that apply for an emergency grant, Flores said. The students don't have to use the new aid only for college-related expenses, he added, as they are intended to supplement any income lost due to the pandemic.

The funds have yet to be allocated to the institutions, which also expect to receive new guidelines for the latest round of aid. But officials have preliminary plans based on the requirements of previous relief bills.

The University of the Incarnate Word expects to receive nearly $15 million, which university officials also expect will be distributed according to previous guidelines and processes.

"Each round has had different sets of rules and we of course follow those," said Darrell L. Haydon, the UIW chief financial officer at UIW. "In the next round we are expecting to have a little over $7 million to distribute to students over the next year or so, and that's great news for our students."

Haydon said the latest round might also go into institutionalizing some pandemic-related enhancements that proven useful.

"I think there's an opportunity to expand our availability to our students," he said. "A university is more than a 9 to 5 type of operation… so we are looking into creating a single-point-contact student service center that would allow us to better serve our students."

In previous allocations of federal relief, colleges and universities have been allowed to use the other half of the funds to supplement lost revenue, meet payroll and cover pandemic-related expenses, such as distance learning technology and protective equipment.

"These are needs that have arisen due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial pressure it has put on institutions across the nation," Jennifer Lloyd, director of communications at St. Mary's University, said in a statement. "Lower enrollment and additional expenses to prepare and support students at universities like St. Mary's have further compounded these challenges, all the result of the COVID-19 pandemic."

St. Mary's is expecting to receive about $8.2 million. Other expected allocations include about $6 million for Our Lady of The Lake University and about $4.2 million for Trinity University.