LDS Church gets $54 million in Stimulus

[_DonBradley]

From what I saw when I looked at the link, these payments are being made to universities with the requirement that the school would use at least half of the money to provide emergency financial aid grants--as the document says--to students, and therefore implicitly with the option that the school could use all the monies for that purpose.

If the government is giving such aid to universities right now, with at least half of it to go to students, then I am very glad the BYU schools are receiving these monies and I hope they will put the monies to optimal use, which, it seems to me without knowing all the factors in play, would probably mean using all of it to help students in need.

I'm unable to see how anyone merely noting that the federal government is awarding these monies to schools can find anything nefarious in the BYU schools being among the many, many schools to receive such funds, alongside, say, the University of Notre Dame. Obviously, if one could find that the BYU schools are taking the half of the money not explicitly required to be given as emergency financial aid grants and using it to host a giant party, or give raises to the administration, then there might be something to blow a whistle about.

That said, it's worth noting the whole idea of stimulus funds is that such funds, spent by any individual or institution would, in theory, help stimulate the flagging economy. On that idea, if the BYU schools spend the money, in whatever way, that helps achieve the purpose for which the funds were given.

i do hope the money is overwhelmingly used on emergency financial aid grants, but I'm just not seeing where there is some terrible thing being done in the federal government awarding this money to universities, and the Brigham Young universities being among them.

Don