Examining the Data: Where do Federal TEACH Grants Go?

This blog post has been updated to reflect TEACH grant data for the entire 2009-10 award year. The previous version reflected data from quarter 4 of the same year. The overall trends remain the same.

In 2007 Congress created a new grant program that helps cover the cost of students’ undergraduate or graduate education if they serve as a teachers in high-needs schools after graduating. The program’s second year is now underway – the first grants didn’t go out until the 2008-09 academic year – so we at Ed Money Watch decided it was time to take a look at which schools are using this new federal student aid program.

First some background information on how Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grants work. The program provides grants of up to $4,000 per year for bachelor’s studies or $8,000 total for master’s studies toward tuition, fees, and other housing costs to students who commit to teaching high-need subjects in low-income schools after completing their postsecondary education.[1] The grants convert to federal student loans if a recipient does not ultimately fulfill the teaching requirement. Because TEACH grants are an entitlement program, the federal government does not place a ceiling on the number or amount of grants awarded each year.

We reviewed U.S. Department of Education data on which schools’ students received TEACH grants in the 2009-10 academic year and uncovered a few surprises. In particular, we found that the numbers of grantees and the sizes of their grants vary in unexpected ways between different states and types of institutions of higher education. It appears that many students throughout the country are not receiving the TEACH grants for which they are eligible.

We looked at which states had the largest numbers of grant recipients. While we weren’t surprised to see large states like New York, California (2,423 grants) and Texas ranking first, third, and fifth respectively in the number of grant recipients, we were surprised to see  Arizona (#2 with 2,770), and Ohio (#4), and Minnesota (#6) ranking so high. Other large states had fewer grant recipients than expected, like Florida which ranked 13th in the number of grant recipients.

Next we examined the proportion of grants going to students at private nonprofit institutions relative to public institutions. One might expect that the majority of TEACH grant recipients would attend public institutions because these schools tend to have large teacher education programs. However, in some of the states with the largest numbers of grant recipients, the vast majority of grant recipients were students at private nonprofit institutions.

For example, a total of 2,423 students in California received TEACH grants in the 2009-10 school year. Of this total, only 429 (17.8 percent) attended public institutions. The remaining 1,994 TEACH grants went to students attending private nonprofit schools – the vast majority of which were at National University at La Jolla. This is especially surprising given California’s extensive state university system. The same is true in Minnesota, where 1,620 students received TEACH grants in 2009-10, with only 214 of them (13.2 percent) attending public institutions.

There are some states that do not follow this trend. In Texas, for example, the breakdown of grants between public and private institutions favors public institutions, as expected. Of the 1,908 TEACH grants awarded in that state, 1,413 (74.1 percent) went to students at public institutions. In some other states, TEACH grants are split nearly evenly between these two types of institutions.

Interestingly, students attending proprietary (for-profit) schools only received TEACH grants in seven states, and the number of awards in each of these states varied widely. Students at proprietary schools in Arizona received the most TEACH grants at 1,241 out of 2,770 total TEACH grants in the state, or 44.8 percent. Minnesota ranked second, with 995 students at proprietary schools receiving TEACH grants. This accounts for 59.0 percent of the 1,620 TEACH grants awarded in the state.

We were also surprised by the breakdown of average grant sizes between different types of institutions. We expected to find that the average TEACH grant would be larger at private institutions and smaller at public institutions because private colleges and universities tend to have higher tuition (in some cases students can get larger grants by attending more expensive schools based on eligibility formulae). However, in several states we found the opposite to be true.

In Connecticut, for example, the average grant size at public institutions was $3,368 – just shy of the $4,000 maximum grant. The average grant size at private institutions was only $2,047, a difference of $1,322 from the public school average. It is possible, however, that private institutions in Connecticut provide more institutional aid to their students, lowering the size of their TEACH grants.

The majority of states did follow the expected trend of having larger average grant sizes at private institutions. In Wisconsin, the average grant size at private institutions was $3,341 while the average at public colleges and universities was only $2,792.

While it’s impossible to know for sure what causes these unexpected findings, the data suggest that the institution students choose greatly affects the likelihood that they will apply for and receive TEACH grants. It is clear, however, that financial aid offices at certain schools in some states do a particularly good job of informing students about TEACH grants and encouraging them to apply, while others do not. As a result, many eligible students are not getting TEACH grants. If the federal government wants TEACH grants to have a greater impact on the future teaching force, it should encourage more institutions, especially those with large teacher education programs, to better advertise and participate in the program.

We’ll continue to follow the progress of this new federal program in the coming months.