The American Rescue Plan (ARP) established an approximately $40b Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund III (HEERF III), which allocated funding to institutions of higher education based on the number of each institution’s students with high financial need and each institution’s total student enrollment. Under this metric, Georgetown was allocated approximately $16.74m. Pursuant to the ARP, institutions are obligated to use at least half of their allocated funding for emergency student financial aid grants. The remaining portion of an institution’s ARP funding may be used for certain other expenses relating to the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19.

As a condition to receiving the emergency student financial aid portion of its CARES Act funding, the university agreed to the terms of the Department of Education a Certification and Agreement in which Georgetown affirmed that, in accordance with the requirements of the ARP, Georgetown will use no less than 50% of its total ARP funding (i.e. the student financial aid portion of its ARP funding) to provide emergency financial aid grants to students.

As was the case under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), student eligibility under the ARP was not limited only to those students eligible to participate in financial aid programs under Section 484 in Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Additionally, the ARP extended student eligibility to permanent residents, international students, refugees, asylum seekers, DACA recipients, and other undocumented students. When the university distributed its initial ARP emergency financial aid grants in early June 2021, 20,900 students were eligible to receive emergency financial aid grants funded by the ARP.

Each undergraduate student who was eligible for emergency grants under the ARP and whose Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) for the 2020-21 academic year, as calculated by the Office of Student Financial Services (OSFS), was less than $30,000 received between $1,600 and $2,500, with students receiving larger awards within that range as their EFC approached $10,000.

Each graduate and professional student in Main and Medical Campus programs other than the School of Medicine who are eligible for emergency grants under the ARP and whose required contribution to cost of attendance from assets, as calculated by the OSFS, is less than $10,000 received grants of either $500, $750, or $1500, with larger grants distributed to students with lower required contributions to cost of attendance from assets and full-time students.

These initial undergraduate, graduate, and professional distributions were made in early February 2021, with the university reserving additional CRRSAA funds to make follow-on distributions to students whose need was not fully demonstrated by the financial information OSFS relied on in making its initial determinations.

In October 2021, the university made a second broad-based distribution of emergency grants, funded by a combination of funds from the ARP and CRRSAA, to undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.  A total of 1,070 distributions of $700 were made to all ARP/CRRSAA-eligible undergraduate students who with an EFC of $15,000 or less for the 2021-22 academic year, as calculated by OSFS, 548 of which were funded by CRRSAA funding.  A total of 610 distributions of $1,050 were made to CRRSAA/ARP-eligible graduate and professional students in Main and Medical Campus programs other than the School of Medicine, 3631 of which were funded by CRRSAA funding.  Exceptional financial need for these students was determined by OSFS using information provided by students in a funding application, as well as information contained in their FAFSA or International Profile, as applicable, with preference given to students enrolled at least half-time for the Fall 2022 semester.  610 of these students also received a follow-on distribution of $65 in early December 2021.

Distributions to graduate students at the Law Center and School of Medicine were made based on determinations of need by each school’s emergency funding committees.  The Law Center made initial distributions ranging from $2502 to $1,500 to students with exceptional need based on financial information available to the Law Center’s Office of Financial Aid (OFA), with awards increasing as a student’s borrowing combined with other financial aid, as a percentage of cost of attendance, approached 100%.  The School of Medicine made distributions of $500 based on applications indicating expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19.

Between October and December 2021, the Law Center made 34 additional distributions ranging from $1,100 to $5,200, for a total of $82,134 in additional distributions, to students with exceptional need based on financial information available to OFA.

 

As of June 30, 2021, Georgetown had distributed approximately $7.47m of the $8.37m student portion of its ARP funding to a total of 5,607 students.  Between July 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021, Georgetown distributed an additional $15,900 in total to 12 students.  Between October 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021, Georgetown distributed approximately $892k in additional HEERF III emergency student financial aid grants to 945 students.  In all, under the ARP, Georgetown made 7,174 individual emergency financial aid grants directly to students totaling approximately $8.37m.  5,6173 (1,734 undergraduate and 3,883 graduate and professional) received CRRSAA distributions between April 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021.  Between October 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021, a total of 1,714 students (1,070 undergraduate and 644 graduate and professional) received grants funded by a combination4 of the CRRSAA and the ARP funding, 1,107 of whom had previously received grants funded by either the CARES Act, CRRSAA, or the ARP (817 undergraduate and 290 graduate and professional) and 607 of whom had not (253 undergraduate and 354 graduate and professional).

Additional information on these ARP emergency student financial aid grants can be found on the Revenue and Receivables website.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 for the institutional portion of its ARP allocation.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 for the institutional portion of its ARP allocation.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 for the institutional portion of its ARP allocation.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended March 31, 2022 for the institutional portion of its ARP allocation.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended June 30, 2022 for the institutional portion of its ARP allocation.

(Updated September 20, 2022)

1Note: One of these $1,050 distributions was funded partially by HEERF II funds, due to the pooling of HEERF II and HEERF III funds for this second round of graduate and professional students in Main and Medical Campus programs other than the School of Medicine.

2Note: One of these $250 disbursements was funded partially by HEERF II funds, due to the pooling of HEERF II and HEERF III funds for certain Law Center disbursements.

3Note: This total equals less than the sum of 2021 Q2 and Q3 student recipients due to certain Q2 student grant recipients receiving grants in multiple calendar quarters, thereby not increasing the total number of student recipients.

4Note: With the exception of the Law Center distributions, Q4 distributions were administered using a combination of HEERF II and HEERF III funding, and so information as to which of these recipients were repeat recipients specifically of HEERF III funding is not available.