High School Equivalency Program (84.141A): FY 2026 Historical Grant Competition

High School Equivalency Program (84.141A): FY 2026 Historical Grant Competition

The High School Equivalency Program (HEP) is a discretionary grant program managed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. It is designed for projects that help migratory and seasonal farmworkers, and members of their immediate families, obtain a high school equivalency credential and then move into improved employment, military service, an institution of higher education, or other postsecondary education or training.

The FY 2026 competition is closed. The official U.S. Department of Education program page lists the application status as Closed and gives an application closing date of June 12, 2026, at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The same page remains the official program source and currently presents the FY 2026 notice as the relevant competition. It does not announce a later application cycle. This page is therefore a historical reference to the confirmed FY 2026 competition, not an open grant listing.

Key details

What HEP funds

The official notice describes HEP as a project-based program rather than an individual scholarship or a general adult-education operating grant. An eligible applicant had to propose a program for the HEP population and a credible path from academic preparation to a recognized outcome. The central academic outcome was a general education diploma meeting the high school equivalency guidelines established by the state where the project operated.

The second part of the program purpose mattered just as much as preparation for the credential. Projects were expected to help participants gain upgraded employment, enter military service, or be placed in an institution of higher education or another postsecondary education or training program. The FY 2026 notice expressly included Registered Apprenticeships within postsecondary education or training. A proposal that described classes without explaining the participant’s next step would have addressed only part of the stated purpose.

The program page also describes the recruitment work behind a viable HEP project. Recruitment is not simply an announcement or an informal referral arrangement. The official guidance calls for informing, identifying, screening, and selecting eligible participants. It also calls for a documented recruitment plan with a defined target population, attention to the state’s agriculture and farming industries, a geographic service area, a timeline, established referral networks, and appropriate use of technology to expand outreach.

That structure makes HEP particularly relevant to community colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations that already have trusted relationships in farmworker communities. A strong project would need instructional capacity, participant support, outreach access, and a way to coordinate the transition to employment or further education. The grant was not a fit for an organization seeking funding for an unrelated youth program, a general scholarship pool, or a single event with no sustained service model.

Eligibility confirmed for the FY 2026 competition

The official FY 2026 application notice identified two categories of eligible applicants:

• An institution of higher education as defined in sections 101 and 102 of the Higher Education Act.
• A private nonprofit organization as defined in 34 CFR 77.1.

The nonprofit rule had an important condition. A private nonprofit organization that was not itself an IHE had to plan the project in cooperation with an IHE and propose to operate some aspects of the project with that IHE’s facilities. A nonprofit could not treat the IHE relationship as a vague letter of support if its proposed structure required the partnership. The notice also described acceptable ways to document nonprofit status, including qualifying Internal Revenue Service recognition, a state taxing body or attorney general statement, a certified incorporation document that established nonprofit status, or the applicable parent-organization documentation for a local affiliate.

The intended participants were migratory or seasonal farmworkers, or immediate family members of such workers, who were at least 16 years of age and not currently enrolled in school. The official program page uses that description in its overview. HEP is therefore different from a program open to every adult learner in a service area. An applicant would have needed a screening approach that could document the connection to the eligible farmworker population and the participant’s school-enrollment status.

The notice also stated that the competition did not require cost sharing or matching. That did not make the budget optional: any non-Federal matching funds an applicant proposed and then received an award for would have had to be provided as proposed. Applicants also had to observe the program’s federal grant rules, including the regulations in 34 CFR part 206, the Education Department General Administrative Regulations, and the applicable Uniform Guidance requirements.

Funding and project design constraints

The FY 2026 notice estimated $11,550,000 in available funds and 3-4 awards. The estimated range was $180,000 to $550,000 per year, with an estimated average of $500,000 per year. The maximum was $550,000 for a single 12-month budget period. A budget period below $180,000 would not have met the notice’s stated minimum. The notice expected a 60-month project period and said that, except in extraordinary circumstances, an applicant should propose a five-year project and provide budget information for each of its five budget periods.

The award figures were estimates and did not guarantee an award. They also should not be read as a single $11,550,000 award available to one applicant. An applicant’s request needed to fit the annual range, the five-year structure, the proposed service model, and the limits in the official notice. The notice described a training indirect cost rate: reimbursement was limited to the entity’s actual indirect costs under its negotiated rate agreement or 8 percent of a modified total direct cost base, whichever was less.

The FY 2026 priorities included an absolute priority for providing a HEP project. The notice also listed competitive preference priorities related to prior HEP experience, expanding education choice, and career pathways and workforce readiness. The career-pathways priority included career or college exploration and advising and recognized Registered Apprenticeships as a postsecondary or career option. These priorities were part of the closed competition and should not be treated as a promise that an eventual future notice will use identical language.

What the application had to demonstrate

The notice required a five-year application unless extraordinary circumstances supported a shorter period, along with an annual budget of at least $180,000. It also required a management plan with assurances that staff understood and would be sensitive to the unique characteristics and needs of the migrant and seasonal farmworker population. The management plan had to address staff in-service training, training and technical assistance, staff travel, student travel, interagency coordination, and project evaluation.

Applicants also had to assure the Department that the grantee would develop and implement a plan for identifying, informing, and recruiting eligible participants most in need of the project’s academic and supporting services and financial assistance. A second assurance required a plan for identifying and using the resources of the participating IHE and the community to supplement and enhance project services. Those requirements turn the recruitment and partnership sections into core project design, not background description.

The notice’s selection criteria allocated up to 55 points to project design, 10 points to management, 15 points to adequacy of resources, and 20 points to project evaluation. In practical terms, an application needed measurable and achievable goals, a coherent logic model, a staffing and partnership structure that could deliver the services, and an evaluation approach that could track progress. It also needed to explain how the proposed activities would serve the eligible population and produce the education, employment, military, or postsecondary outcomes named in the program purpose.

Historical application steps

The steps below describe what an applicant for the FY 2026 competition had to prepare and do. They are retained for archival value; the deadline has passed and this page should not be read as an invitation to submit a late application.

1. Confirm organizational and project eligibility

The applicant first had to determine whether it was an eligible IHE or private nonprofit organization. A private nonprofit that was not an IHE had to establish its cooperation with an IHE and identify the project components that would operate with the IHE’s facilities. The organization also needed to verify its ability to serve the specified farmworker population and participants who were at least 16 and not currently enrolled in school.

2. Build the five-year project and management plan

The project narrative needed to connect recruitment, instruction, participant support, credential preparation, and postsecondary or employment transitions. The management plan needed to cover staff knowledge and training, technical assistance, travel, interagency coordination, evaluation, and the use of IHE and community resources. A project calendar also needed to reflect the geography and work patterns of the farmworker population it proposed to serve.

3. Prepare the budget and required attachments

The official application checklist named the Application for Federal Assistance (SF-424), ED Supplemental Information for SF-424, Budget Information for Non-Construction Programs (SF-424A), Project Abstract, Application Narrative, and Budget Narrative. It also listed individual resumes for the project director and key personnel, documentation of nonprofit status when applicable, the Disclosure of Lobbying Activities (Standard Form LLL), and the Grants.gov Lobbying Form. The budget needed to show the requested amount for each project year and the narrative needed to provide the itemized explanation required by the notice.

4. Complete federal registrations before submission

The notice required an active registration in SAM.gov and an active Grants.gov account. SAM.gov registration included obtaining the organization’s Unique Entity ID. The notice warned that registration could take approximately one week or several weeks and that, after SAM.gov became active, the information could take 24-48 hours to appear in Grants.gov. An organization could work on the application during registration, but it could not submit until all registration steps were complete. SAM.gov registration also needed annual renewal.

5. Submit through Grants.gov Workspace

Applicants had to apply online through Grants.gov Workspace. The Unique Entity ID entered in the application had to match the one associated with the organization’s SAM.gov registration and its Authorized Organization Representative account in Grants.gov. The notice advised applicants not to wait until the closing day. Grants.gov timestamped and processed the uploaded application, and a rejected application had to be resubmitted successfully before the closing time to be considered timely.

6. Verify receipt and validation

After submission, the applicant had to use Grants.gov’s application tracking tools to confirm both the received time and the status. The notice identified successful statuses as Validated, Received by Agency, or Agency Tracking Number Assigned. A status of Received alone meant the application was still awaiting validation, while Rejected with Errors meant the submission had not been successfully received. That verification step was part of the submission process, not a substitute for registration or an extension of the deadline.

Current status and how to use this page

The FY 2026 HEP competition is now a closed federal grant opportunity. The June 12, 2026 deadline remains in the metadata because it is the real deadline for the archived competition, and historicalReference = true identifies the page as an archive entry. There is no confirmed later deadline to place in the field, and the official program page does not announce a new cycle. The page should not imply that applications are rolling or that late submissions remain eligible.

Organizations planning future work should use the official page to check whether the Department posts a new notice, new funding amounts, new priorities, or revised eligibility language. They should not assume that the FY 2026 amounts, forms, registration timing, or competitive preference priorities will carry forward unchanged. When a later competition is formally announced, its notice should replace this archive entry’s cycle-specific facts after direct verification.

Official source

The primary source for this historical entry is the U.S. Department of Education’s High School Equivalency Program (84.141A) page:

https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-special-populations/grants-migrant-students/high-school-equivalency-program-84141a

That page links to the official FY 2026 84.141A HEP Application Notice and Instructions. The notice is the controlling source for the FY 2026 award range, project period, eligibility conditions, registration process, forms, and submission requirements. The official program page is the source for the current closed status and the program overview.