The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program is a new federal grant program that provides grants up to $4,000 to students who intend to teach in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves students from low-income families. In exchange for receiving a TEACH Grant, recipients must agree to serve as a highly-qualified, full-time teacher in a high-need subject area for at least four years at a school serving low-income students. Undergraduate students are eligible for $ 4,000 per year or a total of $16,000 with graduate students eligible to receive up to $4,000 per year or a total of $8,000.

Effective Dates
The first TEACH Grants will be awarded to eligible students for the 2008-2009 academic year.

TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve and Promise to Pay
Each year you receive a TEACH Grant, you must sign a TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve and Promise to Pay (service agreement) that will be available electronically on a Department of Education Web site. The TEACH Grant service agreement specifies the conditions under which the grant will be awarded, the teaching service requirements, and includes an acknowledgment by you that you understand that if you do not meet the teaching service requirements you must repay the grant as a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan, with interest accrued from the date the grant funds were first disbursed.

Teaching Obligation
To avoid repaying the TEACH Grant with interest you must be a highly-qualified, full-time teacher in a high-need subject area for at least four years at a school serving low-income students. You must complete the four years of teaching within eight years of finishing the program for which you received the grant. You incur a four-year teaching obligation for each educational program for which you received TEACH Grant funds, although you may work off multiple four-year obligations simultaneously under certain circumstances. Specific definitions of these terms are included below.

Highly-Qualified Teacher
You must perform the teaching service as a highly-qualified teacher, which is defined in federal law.

Full-Time Teacher
You must meet the state's definition of a full time teacher and spend the majority (at least 51 percent) of your time teaching one of the high-need subject areas. Elementary teachers who teach many subjects would not be able to fulfill their service agreement.

High-Need Subject Areas

• Bilingual Education and English Language Acquisition
• Foreign Language
• Mathematics
• Reading Specialist
• Science
• Special Education
• Other teacher shortage areas listed in the Department of Education's Annual Teacher Shortage Area Nationwide Listing.