The U.S. Department of Education has officially excluded students ineligible for federal financial aid from receiving coronavirus emergency aid under a regulation made public on June 11.
Doubling down on its original guidance to universities, the department notably excludes undocumented and international students, among others, from relief funds under the CARES Act, a decision announced a week before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program could continue.
“U.S. taxpayers have long supported U.S. students pursuing higher education, and this rule simply ensures the continuity of that well-established policy,” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a statement. “Today’s action helps erase any uncertainty some institutions have expressed and helps make sure we can support America’s students facing the greatest needs. We have a responsibility to taxpayers to administer the CARES Act faithfully, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Advocates for college access aren’t so sure. Many are concerned that the formalized limits on emergency aid are too restrictive, barring more than a million students from the funds for technology, course materials, food, healthcare and childcare.
Before the regulation was issued, the department was already embroiled in two federal lawsuits over the exclusionary nature of its guidelines, one suit from California Community Colleges and another from Washington state. Both won their cases against the Department of Education the week after the interim formal rule came out, meaning schools in those states will not impose all the department’s limits on CARES Act relief for students.
Making undocumented and international students ineligible for emergency aid is “cruel and unnecessary,” said Viviann Anguiano, the associate director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. Undocumented students are particularly at risk during the pandemic, she said, with many working in service industries or living in mixed-status families that can’t receive other forms of federal aid like stimulus checks.
In its statement on the regulation, the Department of Education explicitly excludes “foreign nationals” and “non-citizens” in order to “help to ensure taxpayer-funded coronavirus relief money is distributed properly.”
