In early March, President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion federal COVID-19 relief package bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, into law. Included in this bill is a third round of $1,400 stimulus checks for all qualifying Americans.
One key difference in this round of checks compared to previous ones is that adult dependents now qualify, which includes many college students.
However, this causes us to ask ourselves: Why did it take so long for adult dependents to qualify in the first place? A great chunk of adult dependents are college students who have plenty of expenses of their own, including tuition costs and textbooks in addition to essential needs such as rent, food and gas. This makes it all the more puzzling why previous stimulus checks did not take these expenses into account.
While some students may still live at home, our parents only have so much money themselves, so they can’t afford to cover all of our expenses, nor should they be expected to. When stimulus checks go out to independents only, not much of that would go toward the common college student’s expenses, if any at all.
However, whatever the reasoning is for many of us being ignored before, it’s good to know adult dependents are now being recognized. While this sole stimulus check won’t cover all of our current expenses nor repay the entirety of previous debt, when combined with more consistent paychecks in this slowly-reopening world, it is a great help for us. If more stimulus checks need to be sent out in the future, we can only hope that adult dependents will qualify for them once again.