The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act established an approximately $14b Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), 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 $6.1m.  Pursuant to the CARES Act, 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 CARES Act funding may be used for certain other expenses relating to the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19.  The Department of Education has made the student portion of this CARES Act funding available first. 

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

Pursuant to the CARES Act, this student portion is only distributable by Georgetown to students who are eligible to participate in financial aid programs under Section 484 in Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.  Based on submitted Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSAs), Georgetown had 8294 students who were eligible for federal student financial aid for the spring 2020 semester, 3124 of whom were undergraduates.1

As of July 9, 2020, Georgetown has distributed all of the approximately $3.055m student portion of its CARES Act funding,

Georgetown has distributed grants of $2,600 to 1077 CARES Act-eligible undergraduate students with the highest demonstrated financial need, as calculated by Georgetown’s Office of Student Financial Services (OSFS), to cover expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19.  Specifically, these grants were given to those CARES Act-eligible undergraduate students whose family contribution toward educational expenses, as calculated by the OSFS, was less than $15,000 during the 2019-2020 academic year. 

CARES Act-eligible graduate students enrolled full-time in Main Campus, School of Continuing Studies, or Medical Center programs and who submitted applications indicating expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19 each received grants of $600.  CARES Act-eligible graduate students enrolled in Law Center programs who demonstrated the highest financial need received grants ranging from $500 to $2,600.  Determinations of financial need and of the amount of each of these grants were made by the Law Center’s Office of Financial Aid based on applications submitted by students indicating direct expenses resulting from the disruption of campus operations due to COVID-19, with priority consideration given to those applicants who have borrowed significantly or otherwise lack access to other resources.  A total of 392 graduate students received emergency financial aid grants funded by the student portion of Georgetown’s CARES Act funding.

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

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, for the institutional portion of its CARES Act allocation.

View Georgetown’s quarterly report for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, for the institutional portion of its CARES Act allocation.

View Georgetown’s revised quarterly report for the quarter ended March 31, 2021, for the institutional portion of its CARES Act allocation, which revised its original quarterly report for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.

1The previously reported number inadvertently omitted the number of part-time Title IV-eligible undergraduate students.

Updated September 20, 2021