Tennessee schools are eligible to receive reimbursement for students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. According to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, a student is defined as “enrolled in an elementary or secondary school,” but are Tennessee higher education institutions getting similar compensation?

Elementary and secondary schools may use their funds to pay for instructional services, curricular material, school personnel, transportation and support services.

Several of Tennessee’s higher education institutes, including UTM, UT Chattanooga, UT Memphis and UT Knoxville, took in students affected by the hurricanes.

“We were only allowed reimbursement for housing, meals, labor and equipment,” said Al Hooten, Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration here at UTM. “We were not allowed to seek reimbursement for tuition and fees.” Hooten says that this was a FEMA rule.

“Basically, we had no Katrina students staying in on-campus housing. We enrolled several Katrina-impacted students, who lived off-campus, so we incurred only tuition and fee expenses, which were not allowable reimbursements. As a result, we did not request any reimbursement funds,” Hooten explained. UTM had seven students attending class on-campus and nineteen taking online courses.

UT Knoxville has received some reimbursement for their efforts but is still waiting on more.

“As of now, we have about $463,000 in expenses for the 111 students that we took in for the fall semester,” said Karen Collins, Director of Media Relations at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “We have recouped $200,000 of that money, primarily through federal dollars. We have now formally enrolled ten of the original students for the spring semester. They went through the regular application process since their previous institutions are now open.”

UT Chattanooga has not received any compensation so far. “We were told that we would be (reimbursed). We have not been reimbursed at this time,” said Vanessa Parks from UTC’s Bursar’s Office.

Although UTM will not receive any compensation because of the FEMA rules, it is obvious that the faculty and staff were happy to help these victims in any way that they could.

“UTM is pleased that we were able to assist these students during the Katrina relocation process. I want to thank the staff of the University for working with these students during what was certainly a very stressful period. Most particularly, I would like to thank the faculty for graciously adding these students to their classes even though many of these classes were already in session,” said Hooten.

Although UTM will not receive any compensation because of the FEMA rules, it is obvious that the faculty and staff were happy to help these victims in any way that they could.

“UTM is pleased that we were able to assist these students during the Katrina relocation process. I want to thank the staff of the University for working with these students during what was certainly a very stressful period. Most particularly, I would like to thank the faculty for graciously adding these students to their classes even though many of these classes were already in session,” said Hooten.

Chris Cimino, UT Vice President for Administration and Finance, said UTC submitted costs for food and housing at $25,794. Cimino said the university is still waiting to hear from FEMA on the status of the system’s submission for aid.