(Some) Help (May Be) on the Way

From Inside Higher Ed today: It’s far less than the $120 billion in federal emergency coronavirus relief colleges and universities are hoping they’ll get, but higher education lobbyists said they’d take the $20 billion in help a bipartisan group in Congress proposed Monday to break the stalemate in Washington over more aid to help the nation get through the next few months of the pandemic. In addition, the bipartisan group also proposed continuing to excuse most student loan borrowers from making monthly repayments for an additional two months, until April 1. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos earlier this month extended the moratorium, which had been due to run out Jan. 1 until Feb. 1.

The group of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate unveiled the details of a proposal to spend another $908 billion on pandemic relief, including extending aid for the unemployed and small businesses due to run out this month. The proposal also includes an additional $82 billion in education funding, with the majority, $54 billion, going to K-12 schools, as well as $7.5 billion to governors to distribute at their discretion. In getting only a quarter of the education dollars, higher education’s share would be far less than it received in the CARES Act, when about half of the education aid went to colleges and universities. As was required in Congress's last coronavirus relief package, half of the higher education dollars in the proposal would be earmarked for emergency student aid...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/12/15/bipartisan-group-congress-seeks-20-billion-pandemic-aid-colleges

As blog readers will know, the UC budget was partly contingent on federal aid that didn't come within the specified deadline.