PA Colleges Get $28M To Help With Reopening Plans During COVID-19
PENNSYLVANIA — Universities and colleges around Pennsylvania have received significant funding from the state in an effort to protect them from coronavirus and implement comprehensive safety plans for the fall. The news comes as hundreds of cases of the virus have already been linked to universities around the state, and many schools move to fully online instruction for the coming semester.
Gov. Wolf's administration announced on Monday that about $28 million was dedicated to higher education around the state, as institutions look at how they can safely reopen.
“Students attending postsecondary institutions and participating in adult education programs are eager to return to class, and institutions have been planning for months for a safe return to instruction,” Gov. Wolf said in a statement. “This funding will help these institutions, whether they choose to continue to provide remote instruction, return to in-person instruction, or employ a hybrid approach to meet the instructional needs of their students.”
Funding can be utilized for online classrooms, barriers and other protective equipment, health apps and other devices to assist in contact tracing, cleaning supplies, and more.
Individual institutions will receive funding based on the number of socio-economically disadvantaged students enrolled, as well as their total number of students.
Schools are taking their own unique approaches to the fall semester. The University of Pennsylvania, which will have in-person classes, said it will be testing students for coronavirus at least twice a semester. Any undergrad student who plans to be on Penn's campus must have a negative coronavirus test result 14 days before arriving.
Penn also happens to be the hardest hit university in the state thus far, as it's been linked to 167 cases, according to data from The New York Times. It is among the top 10 hardest hit universities in the country, the data shows.
>>Hundreds Of Coronavirus Cases Linked To PA Universities: Report
Other Pennsylvania colleges that have cases include University of Pittsburgh (39), West Chester University (1), Temple University (1), Lafayette College (1), and more. You can view all the data here.
A total of $500,000 of the funds announced by Gov. Wolf Monday were set aside for adult basic education providers.
Pennyslvania has nearly 300 postsecondary institutions.
This article originally appeared on the Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch
