Federal Grant Money: TEACH Grant

The federal government has a lot of grant money for students, especially for teachers. A grant my university just hooked up with is the TEACH Grant. It is a little stringent to get on board, but it's more free money.

To qualify you have to be in a teaching program currently, plan to teach in a high needs field in a poverty school for four years. If you fail to meet these requirements, the grant will revert back to an unsubsidized loan. Well, I would be getting unsubsidized loans if I was not getting the grant, so no problem there.

Once you meet the requirements and get accepted, then you have to remember to keep in contact with the grant people. You have to notify them within 120 days of graduation that you either have a teaching job that meets the requirements or plan on getting one. You then have to notify them once a year that you are still working on it and get your administration to sign off that it is a high needs field, in a poverty school, and you worked full time.

It isn't really that much work, just a lot of remembering to do the paperwork. Write it on the calendar. If you use an on-line calendar, set it up to send you an email reminder. For $4000 a year it is worth it. If they had offered it last year, I would have been able to max out at $8000 for a graduate program. If you are working on an undergrad in education, you can get up to $16,000 for your undergrad and another $8000 for your grad work.