East Central College, a rural community college in Missouri, had HVAC units that were nearing two decades old, years past when they should have been replaced.
Then the pandemic hit. It brought chaos and uncertainty to an already financially struggling institution, but also a windfall of federal COVID-19 relief funds. East Central replaced its oldest HVAC units and updated them with UV lights to protect against the novel coronavirus and other viruses. The maintenance project would have otherwise taken years for the college to afford.
Now those funds are dwindling. Jon Bauer, president of East Central, said the last of those dollars were included in the college’s fiscal year 2025 budget. He worries about how the college will fare without them.
The relief funds “really put a Band-Aid on some inherent funding issues that we were struggling with,” Bauer said, including declining funding from the state. Now “that Band-Aid is removed, but the condition is still there. So, it’s back to reality for us.”
Most community colleges are now similarly down to the last dregs of an unprecedented burst of federal funding, nearly $25 billion in COVID-19 relief funds over a three-year period starting in 2020, doled out in three major pieces of legislation. That total sum included $9.7 billion in student aid for emergency cash grants and $13.3 billion in more flexible funds to allay colleges’ expenses associated with the pandemic.
Community colleges had collectively spent 99 percent of their dedicated student aid and 94 percent of their institutional aid by last summer, according to a February report from the Accelerating Recovery in Community Colleges (ARCC) Network, a research coalition focused on the pandemic’s effects on community college students. The report looked at 976 community colleges nationwide.
Now campus leaders are reflecting on the positive ripple effects of those billions—and some are asking themselves what to do as the dollars dry up.
The Spending Breakdown
Colleges poured much of their COVID-19 relief funding into student supports, including some bold initiatives that might have been all but impossible without it.
Lansing Community College in Michigan, among others, for example, wiped students’ outstanding debts to their institutions. Compton College in California funded a brand-new position, its first director of Black and males of color success. Many institutions doled out Wi-Fi hotspots, set up emergency funds and bolstered their mental health services.
A June report by the ARCC Network found funds were used to meet a vast array of student and institutional needs, based on a survey of 170 community colleges across six states: California, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
Some of the top spending categories were immediate needs during the crisis, such as personal protective equipment. The report found that 92 percent of colleges spent part of their aid on masks, air filters and other protective measures. Some 88 percent invested in technology infrastructure like laptops, and 78 percent spent on distance learning tools.
Individual colleges used an average of $3.8 million to replace revenue lost from falling enrollments and $2 million of their institutional aid to provide additional financial aid for students, on average.
Colleges were already giving out “a significant amount of money for students” via the designated student aid, and the more general institutional aid helped them help students even more, said David Baime, senior vice president of government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges. “And I think that just reflects colleges’ commitments to prioritization of student needs.”
Community colleges’ spending patterns also changed somewhat between 2020 and 2023, according to the June analysis. For example, spending on mental health services increased, while fewer colleges were spending money on high-speed internet by the second and third years.
Thomas Brock, director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, which leads the ARCC Network, said community colleges haven’t always had the capacity to provide robust mental health services. But with this new funding, they were able to offer more support when students dealt with social isolation and, for some, the grief of losing loved ones to COVID-19.
“I think it’s been really helpful for colleges to have some flexible money that they can add to counseling support, to online mental health services in some cases—just really be equipped to address those needs in a way that they were not previously,” Brock said.
Positive Change, Renewed Worries
The June ARCC report suggests that some of the ways colleges used funds will yield lasting benefits, even when the funding runs out. The proportion of colleges offering technology resources like laptops and high-speed internet increased after they received COVID-19 relief funds, for instance.
Some of the technology updates colleges were able to make, in particular, have the potential to help their students for years to come.
“Now that colleges have made some of those investments, maybe there’s not as much need going forward,” Brock said. “At least they have some of the basic infrastructure in place.”
While online learning is no longer the same kind of necessity it was during the pandemic, he added, students benefit from community colleges having the long-term infrastructure to provide these options.
Such infrastructure “creates opportunities for students to take classes at times that are more convenient for them, to be able to work college into their work schedules or their parenting schedules.”
At the same time, the report revealed pervasive fears among community college leaders about the relief funds coming to an end.
Among college representatives surveyed, 89 percent reported feeling at least some concern about the funds dwindling. Three-fourths worried the end of COVID-19 relief funds would hamper their ability to provide emergency aid for students. And a small proportion, 15 percent, reported concerns about having to cut back on academic programs.
Brock believes those worries are founded, particularly when it comes to student aid. He emphasized that community college students, who are disproportionately from low-income backgrounds, still often need emergency cash.
“It’s those living costs, just being able to put food on the table, keep a roof over your head, pay the transportation costs to get to and from campus,” he said. Federal relief “gave colleges a lot more flexibility to address students who are having those kinds of struggles, and I think colleges are rightly worried about not being able to pay adequate attention to those needs now that funds are running out.”
A ‘Galvanizing’ Moment?
Even as COVID-19 relief funds wane, some see the financial outlook for community colleges improving due to other factors—and in ways that may alleviate concerns about continuing to meet students’ needs.
Baime said his impression is that, for many community college leaders, fears about funds ebbing and leaving gaps in their budgets didn’t materialize. Community college enrollments have been ticking up; some state and local budgets have been level, if not generous; and there’s a sense community colleges have “turned the corner,” he said.
Casey Sacks, president of BridgeValley Community and Technical College in West Virginia, said that’s been her own experience and that she’s “not nervous” that the college spent the last of its COVID-19 relief dollars. The funds paid for pandemic safety measures, IT infrastructure and a new learning management system, among other things, she said, and she intentionally didn’t use the money to fund new positions. That was to avoid putting roles at risk when the money ran dry.
As far as Sacks is concerned, the funds got the college through the crisis, as intended, and now it’s back to business as usual.
Still, a return to normal funding remains a frightening prospect to some.
Bauer, of East Central, said Missouri state funding to his institution dropped from about $6 million in 2002 to about $5.5 million in fiscal year 2025. The college raised tuition 48 percent over the past five years to make ends meet. He worries would-be students will perceive “what should be the accessible, affordable institution in their world” as “too expensive” and choose not to go to college at all.
As far as belt-tightening measures go, “I don’t know that there are any more notches left,” he said. He’s grateful COVID-19 relief funds paid for new technology, especially in rural Missouri, where not all students have broadband or laptops at home. But he said that infrastructure will require future updates and maintenance, all of which will add to the college’s costs.
Bauer hopes the good community colleges did with the influx of federal funds during the pandemic sends a message to state lawmakers and others that, in general, these institutions are worthy of more investment.
“That’s the systemic shift that needs to happen,” he said. “Maybe this provides a galvanizing moment for that discussion.”