Education Grants
Department of Education Grants in 2026: What Exists and How to Apply
Grant Writing Service Editorial Team
June 17, 2026 · 5 min read
Table of contents
Key takeaways
- Department of Education grants fund states, school districts, colleges, and nonprofits; students get federal student aid through the FAFSA instead.
- Since late 2025, other agencies run many Department of Education programs day to day: Labor for Title I and most K-12 and postsecondary programs, and Health and Human Services for special education.
- Congress kept Title I and IDEA roughly level for fiscal year 2026, but fiscal year 2027 funding is unresolved and many discretionary competitions are smaller or paused.
- Competitive applications are scored against published selection criteria and priorities, now including the Secretary's priorities on literacy, school choice, artificial intelligence, career pathways, and patriotic education.
Department of Education grants are federal funds for states, school districts, colleges, and nonprofits, and they come in two kinds: formula grants such as Title I and IDEA, which flow to states and districts automatically under formulas set in law, and discretionary grants, which organizations win by competing against published selection criteria. Individuals do not apply for these grants; students seeking college money use federal student aid through the FAFSA instead. What changed in 2025 and 2026 is who runs the programs: the department now relies on the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies to administer much of its grant work, while keeping legal responsibility for it.
Who now administers Department of Education programs
In March 2025 an executive order directed the Secretary of Education to begin closing the department, and roughly half its staff were laid off. Because the department exists in law, its programs continue, so the administration has moved their day-to-day management to other agencies through interagency agreements. As of October 2026 there are 14 such agreements with six agencies. The ones grant applicants are most likely to meet:
| Agency | Programs it now administers | Agreement |
|---|---|---|
| Labor | Elementary and secondary programs, including Title I, migrant and homeless education, Impact Aid, and 21st Century Community Learning Centers | November 2025 |
| Labor | Career and technical education | May 2025 |
| Labor | Postsecondary programs, including TRIO and GEAR UP | November 2025 |
| Health and Human Services | Special education and rehabilitation programs (IDEA Parts B, C, and D) | June 2026 |
| Health and Human Services | School safety and mental health, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods, Statewide Family Engagement Centers | February 2026 |
| Interior | Indian education | November 2025 |
What this means in practice: competition notices for elementary and secondary programs now appear on Grants.gov under the Labor-administered office (listed as DOL-OESE), but contacts are often still Department of Education staff, and the July 2026 Title I and IDEA payments still went out through the department's own payment system. The arrangements are being challenged in court and questioned in Congress, so read each notice for the current contact and submission instructions rather than assuming.
Formula grants: Title I and IDEA
Formula grants are not applied for competitively. States receive them and pass most of the money to districts, which spend it under federal rules.
- Title I, Part A sends money to districts and schools with high concentrations of students from low-income families. Fiscal year 2026 funding was about $18.4 billion, essentially level with 2025.
- IDEA funds special education and early intervention. Fiscal year 2026 funding was about $15.5 billion in total, with about $14.2 billion in grants to states, also essentially level. The staff who administer IDEA moved to Health and Human Services in September 2026, although the department still manages the fiscal year 2026 grants.
For a school or nonprofit, formula money is accessed through the district's plans and budget, not a separate application. Our guide to special needs education grants covers the IDEA side in more detail.
Discretionary grants: fewer competitions, new priorities
Discretionary competitions are where a well-written application matters. The department publishes a notice inviting applications in the Federal Register and on Grants.gov, applicants submit by the deadline, and peer reviewers score each application against the notice's selection criteria.
Several things have changed:
- Fewer and smaller competitions. In 2025 the department cancelled most active teacher preparation grants (the Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development programs), most Comprehensive Centers, school mental health grants, and some special education personnel grants. Some were later recompeted with new priorities, and federal courts have since ruled several terminations unlawful. A Grants.gov search on October 15, 2026 showed only one open elementary and secondary competition, Impact Aid Discretionary Construction, closing November 10, 2026.
- New Secretary's priorities. Between September 2025 and May 2026 the department finalized supplemental priorities that competitions can use: evidence-based literacy, expanding education choice, returning education to the states, meaningful learning opportunities, advancing artificial intelligence in education, career pathways and workforce readiness, and promoting patriotic education. A notice may make any of these an absolute priority (required to be eligible) or a competitive priority (extra points).
- Funding uncertainty. The department is operating under a continuing resolution through December 11, 2026. The fiscal year 2027 budget request and the House committee bill both cut the department overall, and the Senate had not acted.
The practical response is to watch the department's Available Grants page and Grants.gov for notices, read each one closely, and plan applications around the priorities it names.
How to apply for a discretionary grant
- Read the notice completely. It sets eligibility, the selection criteria and their point values, priorities, page limits, and the deadline.
- Register early. You need an active SAM.gov registration and a Grants.gov account; our Grants.gov and SAM.gov registration guide walks through both.
- Write to the selection criteria. Department of Education competitions draw from a standard list of criteria, such as need for the project, quality of the project design, quality of the management plan, and quality of the project evaluation. Use the criteria in the notice as your headings and answer every factor.
- Build the budget and budget narrative under the federal cost principles summarized in our 2 CFR 200 basics explainer.
- Submit through Grants.gov before the deadline. Late applications are not reviewed.
- Manage the award in G6, the department's grants management system, which replaced G5 in 2023. Grants are governed by the department's EDGAR regulations together with the federal Uniform Guidance; the department proposed an EDGAR update in August 2026.
Our step-by-step guide to writing an education grant application shows how to build each section, and our guide to applying for any federal grant covers the cross-agency process.
When federal money is not the right fit
With fewer federal competitions open, many schools and nonprofits are leaning more on state education agency grants, foundations, and corporate funders. Our guides to grants for schools and foundation grants cover those sources.
When a Department of Education competition fits your project, our federal grant writing team can write the application to the notice.
