Schools Offer Help for Students Displaced by Hurricane Katrin

Some schools say they will collect payments, but will hold the money for the schools that the students normally attend. The United States Department of Education announced rules to make it easier for displaced students to get financial aid.

Students from areas hit by Hurricane Katrina have received offers of help from education officials across the United States. The storm caused severe damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama when it smashed into the Gulf Coast last week.

Katrina also displaced a great number of schoolchildren. Schools around the country quickly began to accept young refugees from the storm. At the same time, other children around the country have launched their own efforts to help. To learn more, listen Friday for a report on AMERICAN MOSAIC.

Many colleges and universities across the country have offered to accept students from areas hit by Katrina. Some including Harvard and Duke have offered free classes and places to live. Harvard, in Massachusetts, says it will admit twenty-five college students. Up to twenty-five law students from Tulane and Loyola-New Orleans could also attend Harvard Law School.

I'm Barbara Klein with the VOA Special English Education Report.

There is a cooperative effort among universities to develop online classes for students to take for free over the Internet. The project involves the Southern Regional Education Board and the Sloan Consortium.

In the city of New Orleans, two major universities are closed for the fall semester. Tulane University says it expects to re-open in the spring of two thousand six. Until then, the Tulane sports teams will play at five universities in Texas and Louisiana. Loyola University New Orleans says it will reopen in January. Its twenty-seven Jesuit sister schools have agreed to accept its students for the fall semester.