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News and updates

News and updates

Broader Higher Education Community Looks to Engage with Federal Government to Address Community-Wide Challenges

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Yesterday, the broader higher education community sent to Congress a series of recommendations and requests for assistance aimed at stabilizing the entire enterprise as it tries to cope with COVID-19.  The requests fall into a number of distinct categories:

  • One set of requests addresses the immediate financial challenges facing both students and institutions.
  • Another set of requests focuses on the unique circumstances that research universities face as they deal with trying to mitigate the impact on research.
  • The third set  focuses on tax-related provisions that could assist students, families, and institutions.

Major Changes to Student Loans, K-12 Testing, Due to COVID-19

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Today President Trump announced the below changes affecting the Department of Education as a result of COVID-19:

  • The Department of Education will not enforce standardized testing for K-12 institutions this school year.
  • Federal student loan borrowers may suspend payments for up to 60 days, retroactive from March 13th, 2020. The borrower must contact their loan servicer to make the change.
  • All federal student loan interest rates will be automatically set to 0% for the next 60 days.

The changes are designed to allow school districts to cope with long-term closures, as well as allow loan borrowers to offset financial hardships as a result of the COVID-19 national emergency.

Text and Section-by-Section Summaries of “Phase 3” Now Available

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The text of the Senate Republican stimulus bill, “Phase 3,” has been released and is available here.

In addition, several chairmen of the committees that would have jurisdiction over different parts of the bill have released summaries of the parts of the bill that they would oversee.  The section-by-section summaries of parts of the bill that are most relevant to UW and other universities are provided below:

As noted previously, this is the initial proposal from the Senate Republican and it will need to be modified along the way as they begin to negotiate with Congressional Democrats, who will also have their own priorities.

 

 

Senate Republicans Release “Phase 3” Stimulus Bill

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Earlier this evening, Senate Republicans unveiled their initial version of the “Phase 3” stimulus bill in an attempt to prevent further damage to the economy.  The center piece of the package is direct payments of up to $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for married couples, with the payments being cut off at individuals making $99,000 per year.

The proposal includes additional assistance to other sectors of the economy, such as $50 billion for the air line industry and $8 billion for the air cargo industry.

While the measure was introduced by the Senate Republican leadership, there is still disagreement within the Senate ranks.  In addition, neither the House or Senate Democrats were involved in the drafting of the proposal, meaning changes are likely along the way.

Read more about the situation here and here.

OMB Grants Regulatory Flexibility on Non-COVID-19-Related Research

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As noted on March 18, the higher education community asked the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for regulatory flexibility on federally supported research not directly related to COVID-19.  Today, OMB issued a  memo to agencies that would enable them to grant such flexibility on other non-COVID-19-related research activities.

The OMB memo reads, in part:

This memorandum provides similar administrative relief listed in M-20-11 to an expanded scope of  recipients affected by the loss of operational capacity and increased costs due to the COVID-19 crisis. Many of the operational impacts and costs are unknowable at this point, as they will depend on the spread of the coronavirus and response dictated by public health needs. This memorandum provides short term relief for administrative, financial management, and audit requirements under 2 CFR Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost principles and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, without compromising Federal financial assistance accountability requirements.