Colleges share lessons from HEERF spending

Federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) dollars created opportunities for colleges to not only help students during the pandemic, but also innovate and create long-term solutions. The pandemic has had a “crippling effect” on communities of color and low-income and rural communities, said Michelle Asha Cooper, deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs and acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education in the U.S. Department of Education (ED). And Covid-19’s impact “won’t simply vanish as mask mandates do.” But HEERF is helping colleges emerge from the pandemic stronger, she said.