Higher Education Challenge Grants Program
- Award ceiling
- $150,000 – $750,000
- Closes
- Oct 15, 2026
- Last verified
- 2026-10-18
Awards $150,000 – $750,000 per recipient for others (see text field entitled "additional information on eligibility" for clarification), closing Oct 15, 2026.
In one sentence
Higher Education Challenge Grants Program awards $150,000 – $750,000 per recipient, open to others (see text field entitled "additional information on eligibility" for clarification), closing Oct 15, 2026.
- Program pool (total)
- $5,700,000Total across all awards in this programme. Not an amount any single applicant can receive.
- Award ceiling (per project)
- $750,000
- Award floor
- $150,000
- Typical award
- Not confirmed
- Deadline
- Oct 15, 2026
- Deadline type
- Fixed date
- Opens
- Aug 5, 2026
- Status
- Closed
- Eligible entities
- Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)
- Geography
- Not stated
- Matching funds
- No
- Disbursement
- Not confirmed
- Application effort
- Not confirmed
- Use of funds
- Curriculum · Faculty · Scientific instrumentation · Student recruitment and retention
- Currency
- USD
How much money is available?
Two different figures govern a programme and they are not interchangeable. The programme pool is what the funder has allocated across every award it will make this cycle. The award ceiling is the most one applicant can be granted.
Who can apply?
Not confirmed
Source field: applicant size limitEligibility Requirements Land-grant Institutions and other colleges and universities having a demonstrable capacity to carry out the teaching of food and agricultural sciences and confer a graduate degree in at least one discipline or…
We store the structured fields above. Clause-by-clause text from the guidelines is not connected for this record.When does it close?
What can the money be used for?
4 categorysThe source’s own spending categories, and what is not parsed.
These categories come from the source's own classification. A line-item cost table, where the programme publishes one, lives in the guidelines and is not parsed for this record.
How hard is the application?
1 fieldEffort, match requirement and reimbursement, as the source stated them.
- Application effort
- Not confirmed
- Disbursement
- Not confirmed
- Matching funds
- No
Who has received this funding?
132 awardsAwards on file for this programme, counted rather than modelled.
132 prior awards on file for this programme, largest first. Every row comes from the funder's own award listing; nothing here is estimated.
| Recipient | State | Amount | Fiscal year |
|---|---|---|---|
| WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $138,014 | 2017 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | Not stated | $135,826 | 2020 |
| CAL POLY CORPORATION | Not stated | $134,795 | 2017 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | Not stated | $133,902 | 2021 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, THE | Not stated | $130,389 | 2018 |
| CLEMSON UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $127,752 | 2017 |
| EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $101,611 | 2018 |
| CORNELL UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $91,390 | 2017 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS | Not stated | $81,014 | 2018 |
| THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $63,717 | 2023 |
| THE CURATORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI | Not stated | $29,998 | 2023 |
| UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO | Not stated | $29,509 | 2017 |
| CAL POLY POMONA FOUNDATION INC | Not stated | $29,399 | 2023 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA | Not stated | $29,393 | 2024 |
| CAL POLY HUMBOLDT SPONSORED PROGRAMS FOUNDATION | Not stated | $28,793 | 2023 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | Not stated | $27,586 | 2019 |
| COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $26,249 | 2020 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS | Not stated | $25,604 | 2020 |
| VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE & STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $24,478 | 2020 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM | Not stated | $24,441 | 2020 |
| TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SYSTEM | Not stated | $22,256 | 2024 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $22,218 | 2024 |
| REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA | Not stated | $21,232 | 2021 |
| THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $19,531 | 2021 |
| KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $16,720 | 2023 |
| WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $15,028 | 2024 |
| PURDUE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $13,706 | 2024 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE | Not stated | $8,333 | 2020 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY | Not stated | $0 | 2024 |
| VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE & STATE UNIVERSITY | Not stated | $0 | 2023 |
| OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, THE | Not stated | -$15,374 | 2016 |
| THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK | Not stated | -$219,930 | 2016 |
Recipient names as published by the California Grants Portal.
What comparable notices state
62 recordsStated ceilings on open records in the same industry.
Among open records stored under Agriculture, 62 of 76 state an award ceiling. Those that do run:
- 25th percentile$300,000
- Median$1,000,000
- 75th percentile$2,000,000
A statistical estimate, not a prediction. It describes what a set of notices has published in this catalogue on the day you read it, and says nothing about what this programme will award. Records stating no ceiling are excluded rather than counted as zero, and the programme pool — what a funder has across every applicant — is a different column and is never mixed in.
Who has won this programme before?
132 awardsAwards under the same assistance listing, not under this notice.
132 federal awards on file under assistance listing 10.217, the programme this notice is published under. These are not awards made under this notice — a listing covers every year the programme runs, and awards under an open notice do not exist yet.
- $750,000WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITYWA · FY2021
- $750,000RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITYNJ · FY2021
- $750,000THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATIONCA · FY2021
- $750,000CAL POLY CORPORATIONCA · FY2021
- $750,000PURDUE UNIVERSITYIN · FY2023
Common questions
7 questionsEvery answer is a stored field from this record. Questions the source did not answer are not asked.
- How much can one applicant receive?
- $150,000 – $750,000 per recipient.
- How much funding is available in total?
- $5,700,000 across the whole programme. This is the total the funder has allocated, not an amount any single applicant can receive.
- When is the application deadline?
- Oct 15, 2026.
- Who is eligible to apply?
- Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification).
- What can the funding be used for?
- Curriculum, Faculty, Scientific instrumentation, Student recruitment and retention, as classified by the source.
- Is matching funding required?
- No. The source states that no matching funds are required.
- Has this programme funded anyone before?
- 132 prior awards are on file for this programme, made by National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Recipients, amounts and fiscal years are listed on this page.
AI summary of the source text
Optional. Every core field on this record is already above, free and complete.
AI summary of the source text
Studio reads this record’s stored eligibility and materials text and breaks it into separate points, each quoting the exact words it came from. It never writes application prose, never guesses at a field the source did not state, and never estimates anyone’s chances.
Included with Studio
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The official page governs. If the source and this record disagree, the source is correct — programmes change their terms between our checks, so confirm every figure above before you apply.