The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted higher education in California, forcing students and institutions to adapt rapidly to the public health and economic crisis. Institutions' revenue streams were predicted to decline just as new and increased costs for health, safety, and online education burdened budgets. The federal government provided over $10…

Section 2004 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP Act) includes new maintenance of equity (MOEquity) provisions that are a condition for a State educational agency (SEA) and local educational agency (LEA) to receive funds under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) Fund. These provisions are central to ensuring…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws providing federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education were enacted in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. The second of these laws provided a higher amount of funding than the first, and the third…

Research shows that a diverse teacher workforce benefits all students -- especially historically underserved students in American education, in particular Black students. With a historic pool of federal education funds now available to help address the effects of the pandemic, school districts and states have a unique window of opportunity to…

In response to comments on U.S. Department of Education (Department) guidance on how states and local education agencies (LEA) should determine equitable services for non-public schools under the CARES Act, the Department issued an interim final rule (IFR) on June 25, 2020. The IFR confirms the guidance, stating that LEAs should count all students…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws provided increasing levels of federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education primarily through the Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic as declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. On March 27, 2020,…

Governor Whitmer's April 2020 decision to extend the shutdown of school buildings through the remainder of the academic year came with a guarantee to preserve districts' 2019-2020 funding levels, provided they met a few basic conditions. One condition was to continue paying all district employees, even if staff members needed to be redeployed to…

The purpose of this document is to answer frequently asked questions related to the Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) program under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021 (CRRSA Act), Pub. L. No. 116-260 (December 27, 2020) (CRRSA EANS) and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP Act), Pub. L.…

Although emergency aid programs have existed on community college campuses for years, no extant research has articulated which emergency resources students apply for and how students prioritize these resources against others (e.g., food needs compared to housing needs). To better understand student emergency aid needs shortly after the World…

The purpose of this document is to answer Frequently Asked Questions about how funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, including the American Rescue Plan ESSER (ARP ESSER) program, and the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund may be used in response to the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019…

The purpose of this document is to answer Frequently Asked Questions about how funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, including the American Rescue Plan ESSER (ARP ESSER) program, and the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund may be used in response to the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019…

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law (P.L. 116-136). The CARES Act includes $3.5 billion in supplemental appropriations for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This report provides an overview of the CCDBG provisions in the CARES Act. Among other things, these…

Since 2003, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has produced the annual State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report to broaden understanding and enable analysis of state-level and national funding and enrollment trends over time. The SHEF report provides the earliest possible review of state funding for higher…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the move to fully remote education required higher education practitioners to place extra focus on low socioeconomic students and those considered most at risk due to the disruption in learning (Goldrick-Rab, 2020; Kerr, 2020; Lustig, 2020; Miller, 2020; Zenter, 2020). Davis (2020) discovered that rural first-generation…

Black women pursued graduate and professional school, post-degree options, and employment at a time when their economic future and livelihood were unknown. The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) complicated what many Black women were already experiencing. Guided by critical race feminism, the purpose of our exploratory study was to highlight how and to…