San Juan Capistrano CA—Today, U.S. Representative Mike Levin (D-CA) announced that local students and colleges will receive more than $44 million in federal funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Under that relief package, $14.25 billion was made available for institutions of higher education to respond to this crisis, and at least half of the funding that schools receive must go to students in the form of emergency cash grants to help them pay for housing, food, and other essentials. Last week, Rep. Levin wrote to Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos calling on her to expedite implementation of the CARES Act and to deliver this desperately needed funding as quickly as possible.
University of California San Diego (UCSD) will receive $34,889,769; Mira Costa College will receive $5,511,006; and Saddleback College will receive $4,296,103.
“This crisis has been devastating for everyone, particularly students who have been kicked out of campus housing, can’t access meal plans, and lost jobs that help them make ends meet as they pursue a higher education,” said Rep. Levin. “This relief funding will provide a critical lifeline for local students and colleges, and I am glad that most of these dollars will go to students who need it most. I was proud to help pass this relief package, but the Administration must implement the law as intended, and I am incredibly frustrated to see that the Federal Reserve is excluding nonprofits and many institutions of higher education from the Main Street lending program. I will continue to advocate for local students and colleges as we pursue additional coronavirus relief legislation.”
In addition to helping pass the CARES Act, Rep. Levin also helped pass bipartisan legislation last month to support student veterans. As Chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Levin and his colleagues passed a bipartisan bill which allows student veterans to continue to receive full benefits, even if the universities they are attending decide to temporarily move classes online due to COVID-19. This was desperately needed since GI Bill calculations are based on whether the student attends classes in person or online. The President signed this bill into law on March 21. The House also passed the bipartisan Student Veteran Coronavirus Response Act, which builds on this legislation in several ways by allowing the VA to continue paying work-study allowance during periods of emergency situations for students who are not able to attend to their job; allowing VA to continue to pay housing and allowances to student veterans if schools close during a term due to any emergency situation; allowing VA to restore entitlement to students for classes that were not able to move online and they were unable to complete because of an emergency, while continuing to pay housing benefits; stopping the clock on the student veterans’ “use or lose” date for benefits; and extending these same protections to not only Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, but also Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment.