Congress is currently debating proposals to relieve financial burdens on college students who were forced to relocate to other schools after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast last month.
The House is considering a bill that would forgive federal loans for students whose colleges were forced to close when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast last month.
Meanwhile the Senate and House approved a bill late last month to provide up to $36 million in federal aid to universities, like Georgetown, that accepted students displaced by the hurricane. The measure became law earlier this month after it was signed by President Bush.
The acts could relieve significant financial burdens on students displaced by Katrina as well as the many institutions that have accepted and supported them during their transition. Almost 100 students from Loyola and Tulane universities, which had to cancel fall classes after the hurricane, are now attending Georgetown as part of an emergency cross-registration program.
The bill being considered by the House would also allow college graduates in areas affected by the hurricane to defer payments and interest on loans for six months, and would permit colleges that were seriously damaged by the hurricane to keep federal student-aid payments that would otherwise be returned to the government or loan providers.
The bill is expected to be part of a set of hurricane-relief measures that the House plans to present in a few weeks.
Patrick Haile, a Loyola University New Orleans freshman who is taking classes at Georgetown this semester, has a federal Stafford Loan. He said that although the House bill would help him and his family, more money needs to get to people on the ground.
“It would help us a little bit, because we do need some of the necessities, but at the same time we’re fortunate enough to still be going to school,” he said. “It would be nice to get a little bit to hold us over, but they should give more money to the people who need it.”
Jason Boice, also a Loyola freshman currently at Georgetown, agreed.
“I think it’s fair, because no one’s really at where they want to be,” he said.
The bill that Congress passed to provide colleges hosting displaced students with financial assistance may help Georgetown, said Scott Fleming, university assistant to the president for federal relations.
The financial assistance would come from excess funds from campus-based aid programs like Federal Work-Study, Perkins Loans and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants that universities across the nation did not use.
“There are some schools which at the end of the year end up not having used up all of their campus-based aid,” Fleming said. “That money then reverts to the Department of Education, and other institutions can apply for some of that excess that’s been returned.”
The bill that Congress passed would give priority for those excess funds “to institutions affected [by the hurricane] and to institutions receiving those students,” Fleming added.
Haile said that Georgetown deserves the financial compensation for helping displaced Tulane and Loyola students.
“You guys are making a sacrifice in taking us,” he said. “I would approve [the bill] if I was in the Senate.”
Fleming said that Bush has announced that he will advocate a supplemental appropriations bill in coming weeks that could provide a payment of $1,000 per student to an institution that takes students from universities affected by the hurricane.
“It comes nowhere near covering the cost of tuition, but we made the decision [to admit the displaced students] without regard to anyone paying any kind of compensation,” Fleming said.
Boice, who plans to major in business with a focus on the music industry, said that he plans to return to Loyola University in the spring.
“They tell us right now we can go back,” he said. “They’re planning on having the spring semester.”
Boice added that many classes were full when he registered at Georgetown, and he is ready to return to Loyola in the spring to take business classes.
Haile said that he is grateful to Georgetown for allowing him to take classes on campus this semester.
“You guys have been very welcoming,” he said. “I guess it is a Jesuit thing. I have friends that ended up at St. Joseph’s, and they’ve been saying the same thing.”