Dear Red Wolves Students:
I wanted to provide all our students (and their families) an update on our A-State plans to distribute part of the student portion of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funding (which is sometimes referred to as CARES III or HEERF III).
Last week, the State of Arkansas approved our plan and granted us authority to draw the funds down last Friday. Unfortunately, the procedure by which Arkansas colleges and universities can draw down the ARPA funds from the federal government is still in process.
We wanted to let you know as soon as we are allowed to begin drawing down the funds, we will distribute them. Right now, what we are learning is that eligible Spring 2021 students should receive their allocation by the end of July. Our team is doing everything possible to minimize further delay.
Because the state has already approved our distribution rubric, I am now able to share how much ARPA funds eligible Spring 2021 students will receive. Our plan allows for approximately $5.6 million from the ARPA to be distributed directly to over 12,000 eligible Spring 2021 students (including those who have graduated). In addition to allocating funds to eligible Spring 2021 students, we will distribute the remainder of the ARPA funds to eligible students enrolled in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 later this year.
The ARPA Rubric
Our CARES/HEERF/ARPA Distribution Committee has carefully examined the ARPA eligibility guidelines to ensure that every eligible A-State student will receive this funding. The amounts we will distribute each time will vary based on the number and composition of enrolled students each semester. The ARPA guidelines, for example, stipulate that A-State take “need” into account when distributing these funds, but does not define how need should be determined. Therefore, as we have done with the previous distributions, our ARPA rubric determines need based on Pell Grant eligibility and the number of hours in which students were enrolled (part-time vs. full-time and graduate vs. undergraduate). New this time around, ARPA allows (but does not require) A-State to also allocate funds to DACA and international students. I have decided to exercise this option, so we added DACA students to the non-Pell eligible category, and we have incorporated status (domestic vs. international) into the rubric.