Hispanic-Serving Institutions Education Grants Program

Background
The Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Education Grants Program is intended to promote and strengthen the ability of Hispanic-Serving Institutions to carry out higher education programs in the food and agricultural sciences. The program aims to attract outstanding students and produce graduates capable of enhancing the Nation's food and agricultural scientific and professional workforce.

Grant Details
The HSI Education Grants Program supports projects that encourage innovative teaching or education proposals with potential to impact and become models for other institutions that serve underrepresented students at the regional or national level. Priority need areas include attracting and supporting undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups, enhancing the quality of postsecondary instruction, providing opportunities and access to food and agricultural careers, and aligning efforts of HSIs and other non-profit organizations to support academic development and career attainment of underrepresented groups. The program also emphasizes leadership skills development, multidisciplinary focus, and social and behavioral science disciplines integration. Additionally, the program includes new updates such as the requirement for a mentoring plan in applications, removal of limitation on the number of applications an institution can submit, increase of Collaboration Grant maximum award amount from $1,000,000 to $1,200,000, increase of Regular Grant financial aid maximum award amount from $25,000 to $40,000, addition of Conference DATA Grant subcategory with a total maximum award amount of $100,000, and added information on Limited English Proficiency.

Eligibility Requirements
Applicants for the HSI Education Grants Program must be Hispanic-Serving Institutions with a minimum of 25 percent undergraduate full-time Hispanic enrollment. The program has no matching requirement.

Period of Performance
The grant duration is 48 months for Regular and Collaboration grants, and 36 months for Conference grants. The application deadline for FY 2024 is February 6, 2024 (Regular), February 7, 2024 (Collaboration), February 8, 2024 (Conference).

Grant Value
The anticipated program funding for FY 2024 is approximately $15,332,800. The maximum award amounts are: Regular - $400,000; Regular Bridge - $200,000; Collaboration - $1,200,000; Conference - $50,000; Conference DATA - $100,000.