AI in Education Grants: From K-12 to Workforce Development

Fifty million dollars from the Department of Education for AI in higher education. A $100 million NSF investment in National AI Research Institutes with explicit education mandates. A $500 million philanthropic coalition with education as a named priority. And a new $30 million NSF program built around AI in K-12 classrooms. The money is real, it is large, and much of it is arriving for the first time in 2026 grant cycles.

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What makes this moment different from the ed-tech hype of 2023 is specificity. Funders are no longer asking whether AI belongs in education. They are funding concrete deployments: AI tutoring systems in community colleges, teacher preparation programs that treat AI literacy as foundational, workforce pipelines that retrain displaced workers using AI-powered platforms. The shift from exploratory to operational means proposals need implementation plans, not just research designs.

The Federal Landscape: NSF, ED, and EDA Are All In

The National Science Foundation anchors the federal side. In September 2025, NSF released three coordinated funding actions implementing the executive order on advancing AI education for American youth. The most consequential is NSF STEM K-12 (solicitation NSF 25-545), a new $30 million program replacing the former AISL track. It funds research on how AI can enhance STEM teaching and learning across subjects, with awards ranging from $350,000 to $750,000 for research projects and rolling submission year-round. This is not just computer science education -- NSF wants proposals where AI transforms how students learn biology, mathematics, or environmental science.

Alongside NSF STEM K-12, two Dear Colleague Letters opened supplemental funding for existing grantees. The Expanding K-12 Resources for AI Education DCL invites current awardees to request up to $300,000 (or 20 percent of their original budget) to scale established AI education activities. A separate DCL supports teams entering the Presidential AI Challenge, with supplements up to $25,000 for community-based partnerships. These are fast-turnaround opportunities for organizations that already hold NSF awards.

At the postsecondary level, the Department of Education put $50 million behind two AI priorities under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The first, Advancing AI to Improve Educational Outcomes, funds projects using AI to enhance teaching, learning, and student success. The second, Ensuring Future Educators and Students Have Foundational Exposure to AI and Computer Science, targets teacher preparation and broadening access. These sit within a larger $169 million FIPSE allocation that also covers accreditation reform and short-term workforce programs. Eligible applicants include accredited colleges, consortia, and nonprofits.

The Economic Development Administration added $25 million in workforce-specific AI funding, redirecting resources from lower-priority programs to help communities prepare for AI-driven economic shifts. EDA's STEM Talent Challenge separately offers up to $500,000 per award for 24-month workforce programs in emerging technology sectors, though it requires a one-to-one match.

NSF's Research Institutes and the ExpandAI Pipeline

The deeper federal investment runs through NSF's National AI Research Institutes, which in July 2025 received $100 million for five new institutes plus a central community hub. Several of these institutes carry direct education mandates -- AI literacy research, human-AI collaboration in learning environments, and STEM education innovation are all within scope. The network now stands at 29 institutes nationwide.

For minority-serving institutions, the ExpandAI program is the most targeted on-ramp. NSF invested $16.3 million in August 2025 to strengthen AI research and education capacity at MSIs through partnerships with existing AI Research Institutes. Capacity Building Pilot awards run up to $400,000 over two years. Partnership awards range from $300,000 to $700,000 annually for up to four years. The program is explicit about building a diverse AI workforce, making it a strong fit for HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges developing AI curricula.

Philanthropic Money Is Arriving at Scale

The private foundation landscape shifted dramatically in October 2025 when ten major foundations launched Humanity AI, a $500 million five-year initiative with education as one of five named priorities. The coalition -- MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Kapor Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Omidyar Network, Doris Duke Foundation, Packard Foundation, and Siegel Family Endowment -- will begin making grants from a pooled fund in 2026 through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The education priority focuses on ensuring AI is used as a tool that expands access to knowledge and strengthens how people learn, not just a cost-cutting measure for institutions.

Google.org's $75 million AI Opportunity Fund is further along in deployment. The fund has already awarded $2 million to AI4ALL for AI education programs, $10 million to the Partnership for Public Service for a Center for Federal AI, and $5 million to InnovateUS for state and local government AI training reaching over 100,000 public sector workers. The AI Works for America initiative, launched in July 2025, extends free AI skills training to workers, small businesses, and local residents, starting with a Pittsburgh pilot.

California has moved at the state level through the California Education Learning Lab's AI Challenge, funding AI-integrated teaching innovation at community colleges, CSU campuses, and UC campuses. Other states are channeling federal apprenticeship funding -- nearly $84 million awarded by DOL in June 2025 -- toward AI-adjacent workforce programs, with Texas and California leading in registered apprenticeship capacity.

What Winning Proposals Look Like Now

Across every major funder, three patterns distinguish competitive proposals from the rest. First, the strongest applications lead with a learning problem, not a technology demonstration. NSF reviewers and FIPSE panels alike penalize proposals that read as AI showcases searching for an educational application. The question is not what AI can do but what students or workers cannot currently achieve without it.

Second, workforce outcomes matter even in research grants. NSF STEM K-12 explicitly asks how research advances translate to classroom practice. FIPSE wants measurable student success metrics. EDA requires employment outcomes. Proposals that stop at publishing findings without a pathway to adoption are at a structural disadvantage.

Third, data governance and student privacy plans are now table stakes, not afterthoughts. Every funder touching K-12 expects a clear explanation of how student data will be collected, stored, and protected. Proposals that treat FERPA compliance as a checkbox rather than an integrated design consideration lose credibility with reviewers who have watched enough ed-tech deployments go wrong.

The IES SBIR program remains a strong pathway for edtech companies building AI-powered learning tools, funding small businesses to develop and test products with rigorous evaluation designs. And for researchers pursuing foundational questions about how AI changes cognition and learning, IES continues to fund education research through NCER and NCSER, with AI increasingly welcome as both subject and method.

The funding window for AI in education is wider than it has ever been, but it will not stay open indefinitely -- political winds shift, and the current bipartisan enthusiasm for AI workforce readiness is not guaranteed beyond the next budget cycle. For districts, universities, and workforce organizations ready to move, Granted can match your specific focus area to the right open solicitations and help you build a submission-ready proposal before these deadlines pass.

Sources:

• NSF STEM K-12 Solicitation (NSF 25-545)
• NSF Expanding K-12 Resources for AI Education DCL
• NSF National AI Research Institutes $100M Announcement
• NSF ExpandAI Program
• ED FIPSE Special Projects Program
• EDA AI Action Plan Support
• Humanity AI $500M Initiative (MacArthur)
• Google.org AI Opportunity Fund
• California Education Learning Lab AI Challenge
• IES SBIR Program