Then in December 2020, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act or CRRSAA, which provided another $92.72 million to the four church schools: BYU: $50,333,740 BYU-Idaho: $36,367,051 BYU-Hawaii: $3,626,535 Ensign College: $2,392,206 Finally, in March, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act, which offered the schools another $168.3 million. BYU: $88,556,823 BYU-Idaho: $68,957,975 BYU-Hawaii: $6,542,246 Ensign College: $4,284,256 “BYU will not be accepting funds allocated through the ARP Act,” BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. The money comes from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which now has provided a total of $76.2 billion to colleges and universities and their students. Student loan payments, interest and collections also have been frozen through Sept. 30, according to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington. The total for the four Latter-day Saint schools would have been $333,408,468: BYU total: $171,163,549 BYU-Idaho total: $141,670,272 BYU-Hawaii total: $12,475,662 Ensign College total: $8,098,985 The four schools lost significant money during the pandemic, when they shut down briefly during March 2020. The schools reopened with virtual classes, then gradually added back some in-person learning. Despite the losses, the church schools repeatedly have said they would forgo the federal funding because of the church’s principles of self-reliance. Spokespersons for the schools referred Wednesday to their year-old statements. Ensign College spokesman Royce Hinton confirmed the amount of the funds offered by the government through the three rounds of stimulus. “There have been no renewed discussions about accepting COVID funding coming from the government,” he said. Other schools have rejected the federal funding, too. For example, Harvard has turned down all of a total of $41 million allocated for it after facing criticism for initially accepting the first $9 million, according to the Crimson. Some of the criticism focused on Harvard’s ability to weather the pandemic on its own with an endowment valued at $41.9 billion. BYU's Jenkins said last year that the Provo school believed it could assist its students without help from the CARES Act funds. The university created its own relief fund to help students who attended school from January to August 2020 with food and housing needs. Since then, BYU has provided what essentially are expanded tuition deadlines to help students struggling financially. |