Financial Aid

• Be a U.S. citizen or eligible non-citizen.
• Complete a FAFSA, although you do not have to demonstrate financial need to be eligible.
• Have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.25 throughout your academic program, or demonstrate a score above the 75th percentile on a national standardized college admissions test (submit a paper copy of your test scores showing percentile ranking to the Financial Aid Office).
• Be accepted into an eligible LSSU School of Education degree program.
• Undergraduate students are eligible only if they are pursuing their first undergraduate degree.  Students pursuing a second undergraduate degree and teachers working on teacher certification are NOT eligible for the TEACH Grant.
• Complete the LSSU TEACH Grant Application.
• Sign an Agreement to Serve and complete counseling each year that you receive a grant.
• Complete Entrance Counseling.

Grant recipients agree to teach for at least four years within eight years of finishing their teacher preparation program and to teach high-need subjects in designated schools that serve low-income students (designated as Title I). If you do not complete the four years of qualified teaching service within eight years of graduation or fail to meet any other TEACH Grant requirements, the grant will convert into a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, with interest accrued and capitalized from the date of the original disbursement.

For the purpose of the TEACH Grant program, a low-income school is a public or private elementary or secondary school that is listed in the annual directory of Designated Low-Income Schools for Teacher Cancellation Benefits.

Each year you receive a TEACH Grant, you must sign a TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve (service agreement) and Promise to Pay, which is available electronically on the U.S. Department of Education web site.

The TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve 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 disbursed. Specifically, the TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve will provide that –

• For each TEACH Grant-eligible program for which you received TEACH Grant funds, you must serve as a full-time teacher for a total of at least four academic years within eight calendar years after you completed or withdrew from the academic program for which you received the TEACH Grant.

• You must perform the teaching service as a highly-qualified teacher at a low-income school. The term highly-qualified teacher is defined in section 9101(23) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 or in section 602(10) of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

• Your teaching service must be in a high-need field.

• You must comply with any other requirements that the Department of Education determines to be necessary.

• If you do not complete the required teaching service obligation, TEACH Grant funds you received will be converted to a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan that you must repay, with interest charged from the date of each TEACH Grant disbursement.  If the grant is converted to a loan, it cannot be converted back to a grant.

• Bilingual education and English language acquisition
• Foreign language
• Mathematics
• Reading Specialist
• Science
• Special education
• Any other field that has been identified as high-need by the federal government, a state government, or a local education agency, and that is included in the annual Teacher Shortage Area Nationwide Listing (Nationwide List)

Elementary Education

• Elementary Education/Special Education
• Elementary Education/Mathematics

Secondary Education:

• Secondary Teaching/Integrated Science
• Secondary Teaching/Social Science
• Secondary Teaching/Mathematics

The amount of your TEACH grant will depend on your enrollment status.

Eligible full-time students may receive $4,000 per year in TEACH Grant funds, up to a maximum of $16,000 for undergraduate study.

The TEACH Grant program funding has been reduced by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (the sequestration law).

• For any 2021-2022 TEACH Grant disbursed, the maximum award of $4,000 is reduced by 5.7% ($228), resulting in a maximum award of $3,772.

Links and Resources

• TEACH Grant Information
• TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve
• TEACH Grant Entrance Counseling
• TEACH Grant Application

As with federal loans, federal regulations require that students who have received a TEACH Grant complete online exit counseling upon changing majors to something other than a eligible academic program, withdrawing from school, or graduating from their program of study.

The online TEACH Grant Exit Counseling session provides information about the terms and conditions of a TEACH Grant service agreement, as well as the rights and responsibilities that apply if your TEACH Grant is converted to a Direct Unsubsidized Loan.

For information about the T.E.A.C.H Program, follow this link: http://www.miaeyc.org/professional-development/t-e-a-c-h-scholarships/.  The Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children (MiAEYC) runs this program and it is not the same as the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program.