Basic Needs for Postsecondary Students Program

Basic Needs for Postsecondary Students Program is sponsored by U.S. Department of Education (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education - FIPSE). This federal program addresses students' basic needs in higher education, including food, housing, transportation, health care, childcare, and other non-tuition expenses. Menstrual equity initiatives could fall under 'health care' or 'other non-tuition expenses' for students.

Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Home Page | U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Home Page Basic Needs for Postsecondary Students Program: Competitive grants to institutions of higher education, as defined by section 101 of the Higher Education Act (HEA) to support programs that address the basic needs of students and report on best practices.

Center for Best Practices to Support Single Parent Students (No longer funded) Center for Education Excellence for Black Teachers Program at HBCUs Center of Excellence in Spatial Computing Program is a grant program designed to help increase the number of highly qualified Americans available for hire within the high-tech labor pool.

Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success : encourages model programs to support veteran student success in postsecondary education by coordinating services to address the academic, financial, physical, and social needs of veteran students.

Center for the Study of Distance Education and Technological Advancement (No longer funded) Digital Learning Infrastructure and IT Modernization Pilot Program is a grant program designed to support IT modernization at HBCUs and MSIs, including technical assistance and partnerships with HBCUs and MSI to improve their digital learning infrastructure.

First in the World : provides grants to spur the development of innovations that improve educational outcomes, makes college more affordable for students and families, and develops an evidence base of effective practices. (No longer funded) Modeling and Simulation as authorized under section 891 of the HEA. To support grants to institutions of higher education seeking to establish or enhance modeling and simulation programs.

These technologies have numerous applications for Federal and State governments and their partners in the defense, education, and workforce training sectors, allowing them to generate data to help make decisions or predictions about their systems.

National Center for Information and Technical Support for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities Open Textbooks Pilot: supports projects at institutions of higher education that create new open textbooks or expand their use of open textbooks while maintaining or improving instruction and student learning outcomes.

Pilot Program for Cybersecurity Education Technological Upgrades for Community Colleges: supports technology upgrades for community colleges for the purpose of supporting cybersecurity programs.

(No longer funded) Postsecondary Student Success Program is a grant program designed to support individuals who have started but not completed postsecondary education with the opportunity that will lead to degrees, certification, and credentialing that will increase student outcomes, while simultaneously reengaging individuals with higher education and providing essential wrap-around services.

Research and Development Infrastructure (RDI) Program provides four-year Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) including Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions (ANNH), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Native American Serving Non-Tribal Institutions (NASNTIs), and/or Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), or consortia led by an eligible institution, with funds to implement transformational investments in research infrastructure, including research productivity, faculty expertise, graduate programs, physical infrastructure, human capital development, and partnerships leading to increases in external funding.

Rural Postsecondary and Economic Development (RPED) Program Training for Realtime Writers : provides grants for the recruitment, training and assistance, and job placement of individuals who have completed a court reporting training program as real-time writers.

(No longer funded) Transitioning Gang-Involved Youth into Higher Education: provides gang-involved youth with postsecondary education opportunities that will lead to certification or credentials.

Instructions to register as a Reviewer: MS Word (39K) The FIPSE database is a publicly searchable database with information about current and past FIPSE competitive grant projects and non-competitive Congressionally-directed grants (earmarks) that FIPSE manages.

The database contains project abstracts, project director contact information, award amounts, grant funding dates, subject areas, and links to any project Web sites that have been established by grantees. The database is searchable by programs, subjects, institutions, state, zip code, funding year, organization and institution type, and institutional special designations. Key word and phrase searching are also available.

The FIPSE database is located at http://fipsedatabase. ed. gov .

Current project directors will be given a password to access the secure side of the database where they can file annual and final reports and manage activities related to their grants. Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) Page Last Reviewed: February 26, 2026