The Department of Education (ED) released a proposed data collection form for the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) on July 29, 2020. The proposed data collection form was posted in the Federal Register and seeks to meet the reporting requirements in Section 18004(e) of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act which requires institutions receiving HEERF funding to report on the use of the HEERF funds as required by the Secretary of Education.

The proposed data collection form includes elements to be reported on such as:

• How institutions determined which students were eligible for emergency grants
• How institutions established that students met the Title IV eligibility requirements
• The payment method for how institutions distributed the emergency grants
• The number of and amount of disbursements under each type of HEERF funding disbursed to students (including a breakdown between undergraduate/graduate, full-time/part-time, and Pell/non-Pell students)
• The categorized list of uses of the institutional portion of the HEERF funding by amount
• The number of students who received HEERF funding and subsequently withdrew from the institution
• The number of FTE positions as of March 13, 2020 and as of the end of the reporting period

The reporting of the data collection form would be due on January 29, 2021 for the period March 13, 2020 to June 30, 2020. Subsequent reporting would be due on Sept. 30, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022 for the preceding fiscal years running from July 1 to June 30.

This reporting does not replace the current 30-day fund report required by ED’s May 6 electronic announcement. Therefore, institutions are still required to report certain information about their distribution of HEERF student emergency grants on their websites, with updates every 45 days.

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