Congress Will Give Colleges $20 Billion in Relief and — Surprise! — Some Long-Awaited Policy Reforms
While the latest legislation will provide more money than the March package did, the amount is just a fraction of the $120 billion that higher-education associations have sought in recent months. Since last spring, colleges have shed more than half a million jobs — the largest decline in the higher-education work force since the federal government began collecting such data… Another disappointment for some was the removal of a provision to extend the pause on student-loan repayment until April. The U.S. Department of Education has allowed borrowers to refrain from making such payments through the end of January, so the administration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will have to issue an order to extend that period. The result will be weeks of unnecessary chaos and uncertainty…
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by Eric Kelderman, The Chronicle of Higher Education.