COVID Relief Stimulus Earmarks $20 Billion in Bailouts for Colleges and Universities, $82 Billion for Education
Richard Moorhead
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Bailout funding for schools, colleges and universities is slated to take up a sizable portion of the second coronavirus stimulus package’s net cost.
Analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget places the total price tag of the stimulus’ education component at $82 billion dollars. That’s just under half of the total spending on coronavirus stimulus checks of $600.
Almost a quarter of the total education funding is delegated to grants for institutions of higher education, namely colleges and universities, with $20 billion earmarked for such purposes.
The funds being spent on education bailouts make up almost half of the price being spent on direct relief payments to American taxpayers. Theoretically, the paltry $600 relief check could be buffed to $900 per recipient if the education funding was repurposed.
Not every citizen is getting a relief check. Individuals that claimed more than $75,000 in their 2019 tax return are ineligible, as they were for the $1,200 TrumpBux check that was enacted through the CARES Act.
Certainly, there might be a strong argument that community high schools and public education needs federal assistance- with the condition that the schools reopen as soon as possible to resume the education of American youth. However, there are already more colleges and universities in America than there is demand for university education, and many of these colleges have raked in the benefits of widely available student loan programs for decades, and $20 billion is no small order. Were some colleges to go under, it wouldn’t be a serious blow to the American education system.
The college and university bailout comes at a moment when an ever-greater portion of the American public loses trust in systems of higher education, which have responded to the coronavirus pandemic by doubling down on left-wing identity politics, the Black Lives Matter movement, and intolerance of Americans who support President Trump.
View CRFB’s full breakdown of the more than $910 billion in coronavirus stimulus spending here.
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