In this OPE Program Guide, we have organized OPE programs by their primary purpose. The guide provides a brief summary of the program and a link to the main program page. Follow the links below for the program descriptions. Follow the links found on the individual program pages for more detailed program information.
Helping All Americans Reach Postsecondary Education - OPE's support for higher education begins even before students enroll in postsecondary institutions. Students -- especially those who may become the first in their families to get a postsecondary education -- need to plan early for college and get information, encouragement and academic support in preparing for higher education.
Improving Teaching at All Levels - Quality instruction is essential to student learning at all levels of education. Postsecondary institutions play an important role in training teachers for elementary and secondary schools. OPE's Augustus F. Hawkins Center of Excellence Program addresses the need for a more diverse teacher workforce, while the Fulbright-Hays international programs support quality instruction at the postsecondary level by funding faculty research and educational experiences abroad.
Supporting Undergraduate Students - Once students are enrolled in postsecondary institutions, they may still need support in the form of special services in addition to financial aid to stay in school and succeed. Among the OPE programs addressing needs for special services are several TRIO programs and the Childcare Access Means Parents in School Program.
Most Federal student aid is available through the Federal Pell Grant Program and the Federal Family Education Loans and Direct Loans Programs located in the Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (OFSA). Information about those programs can be obtained by calling 1-800-4FED AID/1-800-433-3243.
Supporting Graduate Students and Faculty - OPE's support for students continues through graduate school. Several programs provide funding, directly or through institutions of higher education, for graduate fellowships and research and educational experiences abroad.
Promoting Innovation and Technology in Education - Ensuring that America's students are the best-educated in the world requires postsecondary education institutions to be innovative, replicate educational approaches that work, and take advantage of new technologies that improve student learning. Several OPE programs support those requirements.
Strengthening International Education - Many OPE programs are designed to strengthen international education, including several that fund postsecondary institutions to teach students the language skills and knowledge they need to work effectively in today's international economy with the many nations who are our trading partners or competitors.
Improving Access to High Quality Education Through Institutional Development and Support - To ensure that every American has access to quality higher education, OPE's institutional development programs provide funds to build academic and administrative capacity at postsecondary institutions serving a large proportion of disadvantaged students.
Improving Access to High Quality Education Through Recognition of Agencies That Accredit Postsecondary Education - To ensure that every American has access to quality higher education, OPE staff and national committees evaluate agencies accrediting postsecondary institutions and programs and recognize those monitoring institutions and programs according to accepted standards and practices.
Helping All Americans Reach Postsecondary Education
Educational Opportunity Centers
Description: Funds centers to provide counseling and information on college admission and attendance to qualified adults who want to enter or continue a postsecondary education program. EOCs help participants apply to college and for financial aid.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies or organizations, a combination of those, and in exceptional cases, secondary schools.
Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP)
Description: Provides grants to community-based partnerships and to states to encourage more young people to have high expectations, stay in school, study hard, and take the right courses to go to college.
Potential Grantees: Community-based partnerships of at least one postsecondary institution, at least one school district acting on behalf of (one or more) middle schools and high schools in low-income communities, and at least two other public or private organizations; also, state agencies designated by a governor.
Description: Provides funding to improve rates of postsecondary enrollment, persistence, and completion among rural students through development of high-quality career pathways aligned to high-skill, high-wage, and in-demand industry sectors and occupations in the region.
Potential Grantees: Public or private nonprofit IHEs, and public and private nonprofit organizations and agencies that partner with IHEs.
Description: Funds projects to identify and assist individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to succeed in higher education. Projects provide academic, career, and financial counseling and encourage participants to graduate from high school and go on to the postsecondary education institution of their choice. Talent Search projects also encourage high school dropouts to reenter the educational system and complete their education.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies or organizations, a combination of those, and in exceptional cases, secondary schools.
Transitioning Gang-Involved Youth to Higher Education Program
Description: Provides gang-involved youth with postsecondary education opportunities that will lead to certification or credentials.
Potential Grantees: Public or private IHEs, and public and private nonprofit organizations and agencies that partner with IHEs.
Description: Funds projects to serve high school students from low-incomes families and from families in which neither parent has a four-year degree, as well as low-income, first-generation military veterans who are preparing for postsecondary education. All Upward Bound projects provide instruction in math, laboratory science, composition, literature and foreign language.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies or organizations, a combination of those, and in exceptional cases, secondary schools.
Description: Funds projects to strengthen the math and science skills of participating students from low-income families and from families in which neither parent has a four-year degree, as well as low-income, first-generation military veterans who are preparing for postsecondary education. The projects help participants recognize and develop their potential to excel in math and science and to pursue postsecondary degrees in those fields.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private organizations, a combination of those, and in exceptional cases, secondary schools.
Training Program for Federal TRIO Programs Staff
Description: Provides funding to enhance the skills and expertise of project directors and staff employed in Federal TRIO programs. Training projects may include conferences, seminars, internships, workshops, or publication of manuals.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, and public or private nonprofit agencies or organizations.
Description: Veterans Upward Bound is designed to motivate and assist veterans in the development of academic and other requisite skills necessary for acceptance and success in a program of postsecondary education. The program provides assessment and enhancement of basic skills through counseling, mentoring, tutoring and academic instruction in the core subject areas. The primary goal of the program is to increase the rate at which participants enroll in and complete postsecondary education programs.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies and organizations including community-based organizations with experience in serving disadvantaged youth, combinations of such institutions, agencies and organizations, and as appropriate to the purpose of the program secondary schools.
Improving Teaching at All Levels
Description: Funds selected centers of excellence to help increase the number of well-prepared teachers, resulting in a more diverse teacher workforce prepared to teach in our Nation’s low performing elementary and secondary schools and close achievement gaps.
Potential Grantees: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); Tribal Colleges or Universities (TCUs); or Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), such as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), with a State-accredited teacher preparation program.
Center for Education Excellence for Black Teachers Program at HBCUs
Description: Supports a model center of educational excellence at one or more HBCUs with a demonstrable record in graduating highly skilled, well-prepared, Black teachers.
Potential Grantees: Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Fulbright-Hays Training Grant--Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
Description: Funds institutions of higher education to provide (6- to 12-month) grants to doctoral students doing dissertation research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies. Eligible students must be planning a teaching career in the United States upon graduation.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
International Research and Studies
Description: Supports surveys, studies, and development of instructional materials to improve and strengthen instruction in modern foreign languages, area studies, and other international fields.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals.
Description: Provides grants for establishing, strengthening, and operating centers serving as resources for improving the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages through teacher training, research, materials development, and dissemination projects.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually or in consortia.
Supporting Undergraduate Students
Description: Provides grants to eligible institutions of higher education (IHEs) to support programs that address the basic needs of students and to report on practices that improve outcomes for students.
Potential Grantees: Community Colleges that are Minority-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or Tribal Colleges or Universities.
Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success
Description: Encourages model programs to support veteran student success in postsecondary education by coordinating services to address the academic, financial, physical, and social needs of veteran students.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Child Care Access Means Parents in School
Description: Supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education by providing campus-based childcare services.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement
Description: Supports preparing undergraduate participants from disadvantaged backgrounds who demonstrate high academic potential for doctoral studies. It does this by involving them in research, scholarly activities and through counseling, mentoring, and tutoring for doctoral studies.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually and in consortia.
National Center for Information and Technical Support for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities
Description: The national center provides technical assistance and information on best and promising practices for students with disabilities as they transition to, or attend, postsecondary education.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations; or a partnership of two or more such IHEs or organizations.
Purpose: Funds academic, financial, and personal counseling as well as mentoring and tutoring to help eligible students stay in college and complete their programs. Eligible students are first-generation college students from low-income families or students with disabilities. This TRIO program may also provide grant aid to current SSS participants who have Federal Pell Grants
Potential grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually and in consortia.
Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities
Description: This program enables institutions to create or expand high quality, inclusive model comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Transition Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities Coordinating Center
Description: The coordinating center will provide technical assistance to IHEs that offer comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities, and will work with these programs to evaluate program components and recommend standards for such programs.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Supporting Graduate Students and Faculty
Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need
Description: Funds institutions of higher education to provide graduate fellowships in selected fields for students with excellent records who demonstrate financial need and who plan to pursue the highest degree available in their field.
Potential Grantees: Academic departments and programs of institutions of higher education.
American Overseas Research Centers
Description: Provides grants to establish or operate overseas research centers promoting postgraduate research, exchanges, and area studies.
Potential Grantees: Consortia of institutions of higher education.
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships
Description: Funds institutions of higher education to provide graduate (academic-year and summer) fellowships for acquiring combined competencies in foreign language and area or international studies.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Fulbright-Hays Training Grants--Faculty Research Abroad
Description: Provides grants to support faculty maintaining and improving their area studies and language skills by conducting research abroad for periods of 3 to 12 months.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Fulbright-Hays Training Grants--Group Projects Abroad
Description: Provides grants to support overseas projects in training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies by teachers, students, or faculty engaged in a common endeavor. Projects may include short-term seminars, curriculum development, group research or study, or advanced intensive language programs.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, state education departments, private nonprofit education organizations, and consortia.
Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad--Bilateral Projects
Description: Funds short-term study/travel seminars abroad for U.S. educators in the social sciences and humanities for the purpose of improving their understanding and knowledge of the peoples and cultures of other countries.
Potential Grantees: Support is generally made available through interagency agreements to the State Department.
Fulbright-Hays Training Grant--Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
Description: Funds institutions of higher education to provide (6- to 12-month) grants to doctoral students doing dissertation research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Promoting Innovation and Technology in Education
Description: Supports projects at eligible IHEs that create new open textbooks and expand the use of open textbooks in courses that are part of a degree-granting program, particularly those with high enrollments.
Potential Grantees: IHEs or State higher education agencies.
Description: Designed to equitably improve postsecondary student outcomes, including retention, transfer, credit accumulation, and completion, by leveraging data and implementing, scaling, and rigorously evaluating evidence-based activities to support data-driven decisions and actions by institutional leaders committed to inclusive student success.
Potential Grantees: IHEs eligible to apply under Title III/V; Nonprofits that are not an IHE or part of an IHE, in partnership with at least one eligible Title III/V IHE; A State, in partnership with at least one eligible Title III/V IHE; or A public system of higher education institutions.
Description: Provides funding to eligible institutions, or a consortia led by an eligible institution, with funds to implement transformational investments in research infrastructure, including research productivity, faculty expertise, graduate programs, physical infrastructure, human capital development, and partnerships leading to increases in external funding.
Potential Grantees: Four-year IHEs that are HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs.
Strengthening International Education
Description: Provides grants to establish, strengthen, and operate centers of language and area/international studies serving as national resources for teaching modern foreign languages; providing instruction needed for full understanding of areas, regions, or countries; training and research in international studies; language aspects of professional and other fields of study; and instruction and research on world affairs.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually and in consortia.
Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program
Description: Provides funds to plan, develop, and carry out programs to strengthen and improve undergraduate instruction in international studies and foreign languages.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually, in consortia, or in partnership with nonprofit educational organizations.
International Research and Studies
Description: Supports surveys, studies, and development of instructional materials to improve and strengthen instruction in modern foreign languages, area studies, and other international fields.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals.
Business and International Education
Description: Provides funds for institutions of higher education that enter into agreements with trade associations and/or businesses to improve the academic teaching of the business curriculum and to conduct outreach activities expanding the capacity of the business community to engage in international economic activities.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Centers for International Business Education
Description: Provides funding to schools of business in institutions of higher education for curriculum development, research, and training on issues of importance to U.S. trade and competitiveness.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education.
Description: Provides grants for establishing, strengthening, and operating centers serving as resources for improving the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages through teacher training, research, materials development, and dissemination projects.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, individually or in consortia.
American Overseas Research Centers
Description: provides grants to establish or operate overseas research centers that promote postgraduate research, exchanges, and area studies.
Potential Grantees: Consortia of higher education institutions.
Institute for International Public Policy
Description: Provides grants to develop innovative techniques or programs addressing national teaching and research needs in international education and foreign languages by using new electronic technologies to access, collect, organize, preserve, and widely disseminate information on world regions and countries other than the United States.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public or nonprofit libraries, or combinations of institutions or libraries.
Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access
Description: Provides grants to develop innovative techniques or programs addressing national teaching and research needs in international education and foreign languages by using new electronic technologies to access, collect, organize, preserve, and widely disseminate information on world regions and countries other than the United States.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education, public or nonprofit libraries, or combinations of institutions or libraries.
Improving Access to High Quality Education Through Institutional Development and Support
Description: Provides grants to support IT modernization, and to enable eligible institutions to provide support and technical assistance to expand their digital learning infrastructure.
Potential Grantees: HBCUs, TCUs, and other eligible MSIs.
Description: Promotes the study of modeling and simulation at IHEs by promoting the enhancement or development of modeling and simulation degree and certificate programs.
Potential Grantees: Public or private nonprofit institution of higher education.
Description: Provides grants for improving and strengthening academic quality, management, and fiscal stability to increase the capacity to serve low-income students.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education serving a substantial proportion of students receiving Federal financial aid.
Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Description: Provides grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for establishing or strengthening their physical plant, management capabilities, academic resources, and endowment-building capacity. Funds may be used for student services, educational equipment acquisition, facility construction, and faculty/staff development.
Potential Grantees: Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as designated by law.
Developing Hispanic Serving Institutions
Description: Provides funds for expanding the capacity of institutions of higher education to serve Hispanic and low-income students through faculty development, fiscal and administrative management, endowments, curriculum development, scientific or laboratory equipment for teaching, construction, renovation of instructional facilities, joint use of facilities, academic tutoring, counseling programs, and student support services.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education whose FTE enrollment is at least 25 percent Hispanic and 50 percent from low-income families.
Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions
Description: Awards grants to Historically Black Graduate Institutions for improving and strengthening academic quality, institutional management, access, and fiscal stability.
Potential Grantees: Historically Black Graduate Institutions, as designated by law.
Minority Science and Engineering Improvement
Description: Provides funds to foster long-range improvement in science and engineering education programs for minorities and increase the flow of underrepresented minorities, particularly minority women, into science and engineering careers.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education whose minority enrollment exceeds 50 percent; professional scientific societies; nonprofit science organizations; and non-minority institutions of higher education providing needed services to a group of eligible minority institutions.
Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program
Description: Provides low-cost capital for financing or refinancing the repair, renovation, and construction of classrooms, libraries, laboratories, dormitories, instructional equipment, and research instrumentation.
Potential Applicants: Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as designated by law.
Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution Program
Description: Supports institutions of education in their effort to increase their self-sufficiency by improving academic programs, institutional management, and fiscal stability.
Potential Grantees: Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions of higher education.
Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions Program
Description: Supports institutions of education in their effort to increase their self-sufficiency by improving academic programs, institutional management, and fiscal stability.
Potential Grantees: Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions
Predominantly Black Institutions Program - Formula Grants
Description: Makes formula grant awards to eligible institutions to plan, develop, undertake and implement programs to enhance the institution’s capacity to serve more low- and middle-income Black American students; to expand higher education opportunities for eligible students by encouraging college preparation and student persistence in secondary school and postsecondary education; and to strengthen the financial ability of the institution to serve the academic needs of these students.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education that meet the definition of a Predominantly Black Institution
Predominantly Black Institutions Program - Competitive Grants
Description: Supports the strengthening of predominantly Black institutions to carry out programs in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics; health education; internationalization or globalization; teacher preparation; or improving educational outcomes of African-American males through competitive grants.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education that meet the definition of a Predominantly Black Institution
Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans
Description: Provides grants to: (1) expand postbaccalaureate educational opportunities for, and improve the academic attainment of, Hispanic students; and (2) expand the postbaccalaureate academic offerings as well as enhance the program quality in the institutions of higher education that are educating the majority of Hispanic college students and helping large numbers of Hispanic and low-income students complete postsecondary degrees.
Potential Grantees: Institutions of higher education that offer a postbaccalaureate certificate or degree program and qualify as eligible Hispanic-serving institutions
Masters Degree Programs at Predominantly Black Institutions
Description: To improve graduate education opportunities at the master’s level in mathematics, engineering, physical or natural sciences, computer science, information technology, nursing, allied health or other scientific disciplines where African American students are under-represented.
Potential Grantees: With the enactment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008, only five predominantly Black institutions are eligible to receive funding.
Master's Degree Programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Description: To improve graduate education opportunities at the master's level in mathematics, engineering, physical or natural sciences, computer science, information technology, nursing, allied health or other scientific disciplines where African American students are underrepresented. Funding will be provided to the institutions listed under the Eligibility section.
Potential Grantees: With the enactment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008, 18 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) will receive funding.
Improving Access to High Quality Education Through Recognition of Agencies That Accredit Postsecondary Education
Description: Administers for the Secretary of Education the process of recognizing agencies that accredit institutions of higher education. Postsecondary educational institutions must be accredited by an agency recognized by the Secretary to be eligible to participate in Title IV student aid programs authorized by the Higher Education Act and other Federal programs as designated by the sponsoring Federal agency. ASL also strengthens postsecondary accountability by facilitating communication among staff in the Department of Education, state regulatory agencies, accrediting agencies, guaranty agencies, and other stakeholders in postsecondary education.
National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI)
Description: The NACIQI is a Federal advisory committee comprised of 15 members appointed by the Secretary of Education that is responsible for advising the Secretary on issues pertaining to the accreditation of postsecondary institutions and to the eligibility and certification process for those institutions to participate in Title IV student financial aid programs. The primary role of the NACIQI has been to provide recommendations to the Secretary concerning the recognition of accrediting agencies, state approval agencies for public postsecondary vocational education, and state approval agencies for nurse education that monitor the schools they accredit according to accepted standards and practices.
National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA)
The NCFMEA is an operational committee comprised of 11 members appointed by the Secretary of Education that is responsible for reviewing the standards that foreign countries use to accredit medical schools to determine whether those standards are comparable to the standards used to accredit medical schools in the United States. If a country is determined to have comparable medical accreditation standards, then accredited medical schools in that country may apply to participate in the Title IV Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program. If the medical school meets the administrative and financial responsibility requirements to participate in the FFEL Program and signs a participation agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, then American students attending that foreign medical school may apply to receive loans under that program.
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Postsecondary Education
Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) Building
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, DC 20202