CARES Act grants available to current students

Beaufort County Community College is pleased to provide grant-awarded assistance through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding for current curriculum students who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this funding is to provide financial assistance to students who have been affected by the disruption of the delivery of instruction due to COVID-19.

One element of the CARES Act funding is the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). HEERF funds are intended to provide emergency grants to help students meet urgent, basic needs such as food, housing, course materials, technology, healthcare and childcare as the result of the coronavirus. BCCC received $347,710 from HEERF to provide emergency grants to eligible students.

CARES Grant will fund the economically neediest students at BCCC who were enrolled in Spring 2020 curriculum courses as of March 17, 2020, per data from the required 2019-2020 FAFSA. Only students who qualified for federal Pell grants for Spring 2020 will be eligible to apply for the CARES Grant. Students who were enrolled only in online courses during Spring 2020 are not eligible. The greater the number of academic credits in which a student was enrolled in Spring 2020, the greater percentage of funding the student may be eligible to receive.

“We know a lot of students or heads of households may have lost jobs or had other unexpected expenses due to the pandemic shutdown,” said Serena Sullivan, VP of Institutional Advancement. “Our students are usually on a tight budget, so unexpected situations like this can force them to withdraw or postpone finishing their education. These grant funds are meant to offset some of the hardships our students have faced over the past few months.”

“We have tried to make this application process as easy as possible,” she said. “You can apply online on our homepage, and the process takes just a few minutes.”

Students can apply online. For questions, please contact Serena Sullivan at 252-940-6326.