The school, which lost 413 credit-earning students — or about 8.4% — during 2020-21, is using a portion of its federal coronavirus relief money to offer direct financial assistance to low-income students who may have had economic stress over the past year and a half. “The macro reason is the pandemic,” Jonathan Eldridge, a COM vice president, said of the need for the assistance checks. “Within that, you have people who lost jobs, or had to change jobs — and that impacted their ability to take classes.” The checks, which will come from federal relief funds earmarked for direct assistance, are expected to help working students reduce or reschedule their hours so they could take more classes, he said.
