The Department of Education has turned up $30 million in unspent federal financial aid that it will direct to help colleges and universities in the Gulf Coast region recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The money was designated for participants in the federal work-study program, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, and the Perkins Loan Program, but was unspent for various reasons.
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced the funding following a Jan. 18 meeting in New Orleans with students and administrators from eight postsecondary institutions in the city that were affected by the hurricanes. She said the money would be added to the $200 million that Congress appropriated for colleges and universities under the Hurricane Education Recovery Act, which President Bush signed on Dec. 30.
Of the $200 million, $10 million will go to 99 postsecondary institutions around the country that enrolled displaced students, with the other $190 million to be divided evenly between the Louisiana board of regents and the Mississippi Institutes of Higher Learning, agencies that oversee higher education in their respective states.
