Washington: An coalition of US universities and colleges has asked Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration to settle negotiations on a COVID-19 relief with at least $120 billion for higher education.
As “the scope of the financial duress of students and institutions has only grown” because of the pandemic, schools face an increase in student monetary need and Coronavirus specific expenses, as well as a decrease in enrollments and auxiliary revenues, Xinhua news organization quoted a letter signed by the American council on education and 100 different groups on Wednesday.
US universities and colleges face “an emergency of almost unimaginable” scale, however, several states have cut their higher education budgets, as per the letter.
“More than 63 percent of college students have experienced financial losses directly or within their families due to the pandemic,” the letter stated, referring to a study led by the American college health association and healthy minds network.
An estimation in April anticipated a decrease of 25 percent of institutional revenues in auxiliary revenues, which covers revenue from food and board costs, conference and facility expenses, event tickets, parking charges and book shops, it added.
Enrolments have additionally decreased in the midst of the pandemic, with a 13 per cent drop in freshman over all the US institutions, the letter said.
Difficulties and new policies carried on by the COVID-19 pandemic have prevented a large number of worldwide students from going to colleges in the U.S. this fall, raising worries that the huge decline could predict a long-lasting shift for colleges that have come to rely on attracting international students.
In danger are millions of dollars in tuition for colleges and a portion of the world’s most brilliant minds for U.S. employers.
The development comes as the US is at present the worst-hit country by the COVID-19 pandemic with the most number of cases and fatalities, as per Johns Hopkins University.
In its most recent update on Thursday, the university’s centre for systems science and engineering (CSSE) uncovered that the nation’s overall caseload and the death toll remained at 13,916,543 and 273,316, respectively.
