The Clackamas print., March 01, 2022, Page 7, Image 7

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NEWS
Cloudy with a chance of stimulus checks
CCC SENDS OUT MILLIONS IN STIMULUS FUNDS FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
STORY BY JO S E P H LO HM O LD ER
M A NA GING ED ITO R
Since the spring of 2020, students at Clackamas Community College have been
Amount of money given to students from each stimulus
periodically receiving checks addressed from the college for several hundred dollars.
package
While this may be out of the ordinary, it is no mistake if you have been sent one of
these checks. These funds come from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic
$2,500,000
Security (CARES) Act, a bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law in March
2020. The college has sent out millions over the past two years, but the pool of funds
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may have run dry.-
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More specif cally, these funds came from the Higher Education Emergency Relief
§
Funding (HEERF I) which is an element of CARES. Through HEERF I, CCC was granted
more than $1,700,000, of which roughly $860,000 went to students in the form of
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checks.
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HEERF I funds were split between both the spring and summer terms of 2020, in
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which 1,801 students received checks during the spring and 37 during thé summer.
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Each student was given a flat payment of $471 in the spring and $384 in the summer.
In total, more than $840,000 was granted in the spring and $14,000 in the summer.
In December, 2020, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental
CARES
CRRSA
ARPA
Appropriations Act (CRRSA or HEERF II) was passed by the federal government and
Act of Congress (Stimulus Package)
CCC was granted another $860,000 that would be passed onto students.
In total, 5,295 CCC students received funds through HEERF II and students were
given funds in a range from $50 to $525.
For students to have received funds in spring 2020 through CARES (HEERF I)
The most recent round of stimulus came on March 11,2021 with the passing of the “students must have been currently enrolled in the spring 2020 term; must have been
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which included HEERF III.
eligible to receive federal f nancial aid; must not have been enrolled in exclusively
Through HEERF III, CCÇ was given $5 million to grant to students between the online courses on March 13, 2020 and must have had a completed 19-20 FAFSA on
spring, summer and fall terms of 2021.
f le,” Sanne said.
In the spring, 6,971 students individually received between $100 and $800 for a total
The requirements for summer 2020 varied. Sanne said students must have been
of $2,215,600. In the summer, 1,789 students received between $100 and $650 for a “enrolled on March 15,2020 during the winter 2020 term; students who were enrolled
total of $492,750. In the fall, 6,291 students received between $100 and $800 for a total exclusively in online courses on the date the emergency was declared (March 13,2020)
of $2,097,200.
[were] not eligible for CARES Act Emergency Grants; must have had a completed 2020-
To better understand eligibility for these relief funds was determined, The ,2021 FAFSA o n f le; must have been eligible to receive federal f nancial aid; had been
Clackamas Print contacted Terrie Sanne, director of f nancial aid and scholarships currently enrolled for Summer 2020; did not receive CARES Act funding during Spring
for CCC. Sanne said, “The three emergency relief bills [CARES, CRRSA and ARPA} each 2020; were currently meeting SAP standards.”
have some unique complexity.”
To receive CRRSA (HEERF II) students must have been enrolled in the winter 2021
term, must have completed one credit, a GED or English as a Second Language course.
Number of students who received each stimulus
CRSSA also required that the college give priority to Pell grant recipients, meaning
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that those students would get larger disbursements. The requirements to receive
ARPA (HEERF III) were the exact same as for CRRSA.
Xortney Parr, a CCC student who received a couple of the stimulus packages, said, “I
didn’t really know what it was for. Like, I just thought it was a scholarship for soccer,”
Parr said. She received two separate checks in 2021 through HEERF III, both for $450.
Parr said that she put the money from the stimulus into her savings to help pay for
college down the road. Regarding any future stimulus, Parr said, “I’m a broke college
student, I don’t have much money. So like, any money I’m gonna take. Yo.u know?”
It’s not clear whether students will be getting any more checks in the mail. Jeff
Shaffer, the dean of business services for the college, said, “We were unable to f nd
correct addresses for students to be able to get them their money. And with those
unclaimed funds we may have some application or small process to pay out those
CARES
CRRSA
ARPA
funds in some way. But we’d be talkingabout a few thousand dollars total arid not the
millions that we’ve been giving out every term like before.”
Act of Congress (Stimulus Package)
The Clackamas Print
theclackamasprint.com
March 2022