A group of ASU students sent a letter to the university’s administration on Wednesday requesting a meeting on emergency grants meant to help students during the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. Department of Education announced in April that it would send billions of dollars to universities to help its students with the coronavirus pandemic. ASU will get the largest allocation of any public university, $63.5 million in total. The department requires that half of the funds go directly to students, but ASU has yet to distribute the money.
ASU told the Arizona Republic last month it would not send checks to spring semester students. Instead it would wait to distribute the money since universities have up to a year to do so.
Spring 2020 graduate Jessica Antonio is part of a group of students who say they need help now.
“We feel forgotten," she said. "We feel left out and we feel ignored. And we feel like ASU doesn’t care about us or we are not part of the ASU family.”
The students hope to meet with ASU officials to discuss the issue. ASU did not respond to requests for comment on whether it's received the CARES Act funds and when it plans to distribute them.
Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona began distributingparts of the funds they received to its students in May.
