Fourth Stimulus Check Update: $14 Billion In Relief Payments Could Come To Some Americans Soon

One group of Americans that may have felt overlooked during the COVID-19 pandemic, could soon be seeing some extra cash in their pockets before the end of the year.

College students who applied for grants through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), which was passed as a part of the CARES act, to help schools provide emergency grants to students experiencing financial hardship specifically because of the pandemic, to help offset some of the expenses related to a student’s cost of attendance in school and for any emergency costs. Now, colleges that received allocated funds are disbursing payments to their students before the year comes to an end.

The amounts students receive will vary, though a number of schools reported amounts of $1,000 up to $6,500 going out to some students to the U.S. Sun. Some of the schools which reported funds included Penn State, which gave students grants from $1,000-$1,800 in a first round of funding that ended Nov. 15 and will be giving out a new round of funds for $1,000 each soon, Duke University, which plans grants of either $1,750 or $3,000 in December, and the University of Rhode Island, which had previously announced a “block grant” in late November, with funds ranging from $1,500-$2,500.

These grants aren’t the only ways those who have received a higher education have gotten some aid during the pandemic, though former students still paying off their college debts are going to soon find themselves once again making payments on their previously paused federal student loans.

While student loans were put into an administrative forbearance at the beginning of the pandemic, which allowed Americans to stop making payments and no longer accrue interest, they were initially expected to start up again within a few months. The pause was further extended through 2021, with the Biden Administration giving one last extended six-month pause that ends on Jan. 31, 2022.

However, while economic hardship is a factor in the extended student loan pause, it was also widely believed at the time of the last extension that the U.S. Department of Education was doing so in part due to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency announcing it would not renew its contract with the federal government after it ended in December, which affected borrowers whose loans are serviced through there.