To provide fast and direct economic aid to the American people negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted a series of laws and injected about $4.6 trillion into the U.S. economy. Of this amount, over $75 billion was directed to institutions of higher education through the Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) Funds. This brief describes the broad purposes of the funds as indicated by Congress and the U.S. Department of Education, and it provides a first look at how much funding was awarded to and spent by the nation’s community colleges between March 2020 and February 28, 2023. Over $25 billion in HEER funding was awarded to community colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This brief will be followed by a longer report analyzing HEER funding and spending through the original spending deadline of June 30, 2023. The forthcoming report—scheduled for late 2023—will examine in detail the amounts awarded and spent across all award categories and explore spending patterns by institutional characteristics. The report will incorporate the most recently available spending data and discuss implications for unspent funds. In addition to both this brief and the forthcoming report, the authors will also release an interactive dashboard on the ARCC Network website that allows for further, independent exploration of HEER-related data.