"Hurry! There’s free money available for college students struggling to make ends meet because of COVID-19. Millions of federal dollars in emergency student aid have been available for months, but some colleges are still hanging onto a lot of the cash because students aren’t asking for it," Fox4 reports.

..."Johnson County Community College is still holding onto $1 million of its $2.5 million in funds – about 15% of eligible students have received assistance. JCCC told FOX4 that it has been slow doling out the funds because of confusion surrounding the federal aid program.

'How to distribute the money was difficult for institutions,' said Megan Coval with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

Coval said the U.S. Department of Education kept changing the rules on which students were eligible. To begin with, every student could get the money, then it changed to only students who had filled out a financial aid form (FAFSA), then it was only those who could prove they had suffered a COVID-19-related expense.

'It made it very difficult to put a firm plan in place with them kind of keep changing their minds and adding new things,' Coval said."

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Articles included under the notable headlines section are not written by NASFAA, but rather by external sources. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

Publication Date: 7/23/2020