Photo | Grant Welker
Assumption College President Francesco Cesareo
Updated: April 20, 2020
Assumption establishing $3M fund to help students during pandemic
Photo | Grant Welker
Assumption College's Worcester campus
By Grant Welker
Assumption College has established a $3-million fund to provide additional financial aid for students whose families are facing financial hardship because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Worcester school said Monday the fund will help families dealing with loss of employment, furloughs, reduction of hours and other factors. Both returning and incoming students with a demonstrated financial need are eligible.
Francesco Cesareo, the Assumption president, recommended the school's board of trustees form a crisis response committee, and one of the first issues it discussed was helping returning and prospective students with an expected new financial hurdle.
“We knew we had to act on that fairly quickly," Cesareo said in an interview. "The thought process behind establishing the relief fund was recognizing that situations have changed for a proportion of students."
The Assumption Coronavirus Financial Aid Relief Fund will give eligible families room grants of up to $8,500 and tuition grants of up to $10,000 for the 2020-'21 school year. Assumption, realizing that the long-term impact of the pandemic may take awhile to play out, will accept applications for assistant throughout the 2020-'21 school year.
Applications will be considered for whether a job was lost or furloughed, whether work hours were reduced, or whether someone lost an ability to work because of a coronavirus diagnosis or caring for someone with the virus.
Assumption received 40 applications within the first 24 hours of announcing the fund, Cesareo said. Among other steps the school has taken is moving back its deposit deadline for prospective students by a month to June 1 and lowering the required deposit amount.
Assumption suspended operations at its Rome campus in early March as the pandemic began hitting Italy hard, and within a few weeks stopped classes back in Worcester and moved courses online. Summer classes have already been moved online as well, and the college isn't sure what to expect this fall — in terms of holding classes in person or what the student body may look like.
"I think we're all not knowing what to expect for fall enrollment," Cesareo said, adding that he hopes courses can take place in person this fall. "Obviously we don't know if that will be the case."
Colleges nationally have been given $12.5 billion from the federal CARES Act's Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. Half the funds, or more than $6.2 billion, are meant to be used for emergency aid to students.
Central Massachusetts colleges have received nearly $33 million through a formula weighing 75% on each school's share of full-time equivalent enrollment of Pell Grant financial need recipients and 25% on non-Pell Grant recipients.
Many colleges have also refunded on a prorated basis room and board costs for students once they were required to move out of their dorms in March.
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