The Modesto Junior College Executive Team received notice from the U.S. Department of Education it would qualify to receive $9.6 million dollars in funding, as part of the CARES Act: Higher Education Emergency Relief Funding. The first step in the cycle in this year-long funding was to apply for the funding in the form of a grant. The administration moved expeditiously to submit their grant application, which has been approved for Part 1.

Under the restrictions and policies of this funding, 50 percent, (the first $4.8 million) of the grant must be delivered directly as monies to students to provide assistance due to hardships they endured as a result of instruction and operations going remote due to COVID-19, for example food, housing and technology expenses.

Vice President for Student Services, Flerida Arias, shared how the funds will be distributed.

“In collaboration with the Financial Aid Program, we will distribute monies to students that have the highest need. These will be the students in special programs: DSPS, EOP&S, CalWorks, Foster Youth, Veterans, TRIO, Umoja, The Collaborative, Re-Entry Success Network (formerly Incarcerated), Nursing, and Athletes. Seventy-five percent of the monies will go to Pell Recipients including the above mentioned. The other 25 percent will be students who were not Pell recipients but have been affected by COVID-19. We will notify students by email and make them aware of block grants for housing, food and tech equipment. A huge piece of the grant is reporting and oversight of monies. We are putting systems to provide data of the distributions for full transparency to our community.”

To learn more about requirements and policies of the CARES Act, visit the Department of Education site dedicated for this funding, as well as Q & A’s: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/caresact.html.

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