The University of Illinois System has created a fund that will provide at least $36 million in new, targeted financial aid to help students who are facing increased need now and for the coming academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Tim Killeen announced today.
The Students FIRST (Funding Is Required to Support Tuition and other costs): COVID-19 Emergency Fund will help defray tuition, housing and other costs for undergraduate and graduate students experiencing unexpected shortfalls, Killeen said. The pandemic has cut deeply into the U.S. economy and left millions of Americans out of work.
The fund will be supported through the federal COVID-19 relief package, funding from the system and its three universities, and private fundraising.
Financial aid for students from Illinois will be a priority, including a guarantee to cover next year’s tuition increase for every new in-state undergraduate student. In-state tuition is increasing next fall for the first time in six years – by 1.8 percent in Urbana-Champaign and Chicago and by 1 percent in Springfield – to fund faculty additions that are needed to keep pace with seven straight years of record enrollment system-wide.
“The pandemic has disrupted college savings plans that were years in the making and created financial hardships no one could have foreseen,” Killeen said. “We want to make sure it doesn’t deny students access to the education that will transform their lives and supply the next-generation workforce that is so critical to the future of our state and nation.”
He said the fund grew from initial discussions about waiving next year’s sub-inflationary tuition increase to address the financial challenges that the pandemic has created. That plan would have had limited impact, though, because only incoming freshmen and transfer students are in line for the increase. The new fund will provide aid to help offset costs beyond just tuition, and will target students with the greatest needs.
The fund will be managed by the three universities, through their financial aid offices. It will be supported by funding the universities will receive from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will provide $31.5 million to be used specifically for students.
In addition, the system and three universities will provide internal funding and will work with the U of I Foundation to raise private support to augment the fund. Killeen is providing $1 million from the President’s Office to spur donor support.
The Students FIRST: COVID-19 Emergency Fund is expected to be needed only through the 2020-21 academic year, supporting students and their families in the wake of the pandemic, and will be reevaluated as the economy recovers.
The emergency fund builds on existing programs that already provide more than $240 million in institutional financial aid system-wide, and have increased threefold in the last decade.
