For These Colleges, Covid-Relief Money Was a Lifeline

More than $76 billion in federal aid during the Covid-19 pandemic helped keep many colleges afloat amid a very rough economic time. But which institutions relied on these funds the most? To answer that question, The Chronicle analyzed more than 1,600 institutions that saw drops in net tuition revenue from 2019 to 2021 to see what impact this influx of federal funding had on their bottom lines. The influx of federal money relative to tuition revenue, which is typically the fiscal lifeblood of many institutions, was substantial. For example, four-year institutions reported a nearly 60-percent jump in federal funds, from $30 billion in 2019 to $48 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, despite broad concerns about enrollment drops, tuition revenue generally stayed consistent with 2019 figures.