CARES Act didn’t give community colleges a ‘fair shake,’ Hillman tells State Journal


The Wisconsin State Journal utilized the expertise of UW–Madison’s Nicholas Hillman for an article reporting on how the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has shortchanged technical and community colleges, meaning that some Wisconsin college students who were most likely to need money to help them through the pandemic were the least likely to receive it.

nick hillman
Hillman

These colleges primarily serve part-time students “who juggle jobs and families, and even in normal times struggle with basic needs like food, housing, child care, and transportation,” the article reports.

“Regardless of what the formula did, there wasn’t enough money” for colleges in general, said Hillman, an associate professor in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and director of the university’s Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) lab, which studies college access and affordability.

“But if you’ve got limited money, you better be allocating it where it matters the most. And if you were a community college, you didn’t really get a fair shake.”

An analysis by the SSTAR lab found most of Wisconsin’s technical colleges received less money per student from the CARES Act than those attending a University of Wisconsin System institution, private college, or for-profit college, the article reports. Jared Colston, a doctoral student with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, converted the data into a usable format that the SSTAR lab turned into a CARES Act dashboard.

For example, whereas UW–Madison received $422 per student in CARES money, Madison College got $249 per student.

Morna Foy, the president of the Wisconsin Technical College System (and a UW–Madison alumna), said that many technical college students have lost their jobs or faced reduced work hours, and others are parents who have abruptly needed to teach their children on top of their own studies.

The circumstances have forced students to shift priorities and, in some cases, take fewer classes or pause their education entirely, she said.

“My big worry, honestly, is that many of our students are going to get discouraged,” Foy said. “A lot of students have suspended their own academic pursuits.”

Learn more by reading the full article at madison.com, here.

Pin It on Pinterest