By Allie Bidwell, Communications Staff

Updated 9/27/17: This article has been updated to clarify the circumstances under which institutions may make across-the-board cost of attendance adjustments.

Hurricane Katrina was not supposed to hit the New Orleans area in August 2005. Days before the storm made landfall, its projected path was pointed toward the Florida panhandle, but the forecast changed within a matter of hours.

"When we left work Friday, we said, 'See you Monday,' and Monday turned into January," said Shannon Neal, associate director of financial aid and scholarships at Dillard University. "There was no time to plan for this to happen."

After the hurricane hit, Dillard was the only institution in the area that was not able to reopen within a few months. Operations didn't resume at Dillard until January 2006, but even then, the university was housed at a hotel in New Orleans. Students and staff were unable to return to campus until the following fall. Nevertheless, students planned to resume their studies, and staff had to find a way to help them.

The sudden change in Katrina's path left staff and faculty at Dillard scrambling to address a list of issues from tracking down paperwork and continuing aid disbursements, to accommodating residential students and making sure essential staff could perform their duties remotely.

Although natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes may at times be near impossible to anticipate, there are several steps institutions can take to make sure that in the case of an emergency, they are prepared to continue serving students to the best extent possible.

One thing Neal recommends schools do is to go paperless as much as possible by scanning documents and using shared drives to store information, and using web-based portals for students to maintain access to account information.

"We left a lot of paperwork in our offices," Neal said. "There was no time to save anything."

Another technological investment schools can make is providing essential staff with laptops, cell phones, and other equipment to enable them to work remotely. While it may come at a higher cost to some schools, especially smaller ones, Neal said Dillard found it to be a helpful investment. Michael Goodman, associate vice president of university financial aid at Tulane University, added that staff should have alternate email addresses in case university servers go down. Campus offices should also keep an emergency contact list of everyone's alternative contact information, he said.

At the same time, colleges and universities should keep in mind that many of their own employees could be impacted by the same natural disasters, Goodman said.

"Recognize that staff may now have family in shelters; go home each night to pull out sheetrock and ruined items from their homes; must try to contact insurance agents and/or repairmen; or struggle with a variety of other issues related to the recent storm," he wrote in an email. "So provide time for your staff to do what they need to do and recognize that their ability to cope with this tragic weather event on a personal level is paramount to their ability to continue to serve your students."

Colleges and universities should also make plans for how to accommodate displaced students who live on campus. Following Katrina, Neal said many Dillard students were evacuated to Centenary College, located about five hours northwest in Shreveport, LA. The two institutions have since formalized the partnership to house students in the event of an emergency.

"It's something many universities may not think about, especially if they have a large population of residential students," Neal said. "Who plans to evacuate their entire student population? We had to learn quickly."

Students impacted by a natural disaster might also need to replace items lost in the process, such as textbooks or clothes. Goodman said Tulane decided to add a fixed amount of $2,000 to every student's cost of attendance, which was recognized as post-storm assistance.

"The amount we added equated to the amount that FEMA had determined was an appropriate amount to immediately distribute to those impacted from Katrina," he said, adding that schools impacted by recent hurricanes Harvey and Irma "may want to follow a similar cost of attendance adjustment" for their students.

While GEN-17-08 references the use of professional judgment (PJ) to make cost of attendance adjustments on a case-by-case basis, ED's waivers and modifications for affected individuals under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 specifically waives the case-by-case requirement under PJ. Under the HEROES Act, an affected individual includes someone who resides or is employed in an area that is declared a disaster area by any federal, state, or local official in connection with a national emergency declared by the President of the United States. The school may choose to either exercise PJ on a case-by-case basis or apply it across the board.

Neal said it would behoove schools to think about liability ahead of time and develop policies that address who bears responsibility. Without a plan in place, Neal said Dillard dealt with these issues for years after the storm.

In the end, schools can also turn to their colleagues for advice and support, Goodman said, whether it be those at the Department of Education, at NASFAA, or other financial aid professionals.

"The compassion and assistance from so many was wonderful and allowed us to persevere each day, letting us know that we were on a path of recovery," Goodman said.

Publication Date: 9/25/2017

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