The Academic Competitiveness Grant

The Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) began during the academic year of 2006 – 2007 to college students in their first year that finished high school after January 1st of 2006 and college students in their second year who earned their high school diplomas after the 1st of January 2005, respectively.

Amount received in Grant

An Academic Competitiveness Grant recipient is able to receive $750 during the first year and $1300 for his second year of study. Proceeds from Academic Competitiveness Grants can be added to Pell Grants. However, the amount will not exceed the applicant’s cost of attending a particular education institution. The amount that the ACG gives out may vary per year. This depends on the number of eligible applicants. If their number balloons to a quantity that would cause the funds of the program to exceed the grant budget for the year, the amount that the grant will distribute to each eligible applicant may be reduced accordingly.
Requirements for eligibility
Applicants who wish to avail of the Academic Competitiveness Grant should fall under the following categories.
• An applicant should either be a citizen of the United States or an eligible non-citizen.
• An applicant should have applied for a Federal Pell Grant and is currently receiving benefits from the Pell Grant.
• The applicant should be currently enrolled in a degree program, at least in half-time.
• An applicant should currently be enrolled in an educational institution that participates in the grant and should be an undergraduate student in his or her 1st or 2nd year.
• The applicant can either be enrolled in a certificate program that will entail him to complete one year or a two or four -year degree.
If the applicant is a first-year student, he or she must not be enrolled in another ACG-accredited program while he or she is of school age. If the applicant is a second-year student, he or she must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. This should be attained while the student is in his or her first year as an undergraduate.
In order for a student to qualify for an ACG, he or she should have completed any one of the programs that fall under the “rigorous secondary school program of study” category requirement:
• An applicant should be in school programs allocated by State Education Agencies (SEA) and Local Education Agencies (LEA) authorized by the state and accredited by the Department of Education
• State-established advanced or honors high school programs.
• High school programs that are acknowledged by a state-level partnership accredited by WICHE for the state of Boulder, Colorado.
• A secondary education program wherein a student has completed
• English (4 years) ;
• Math subjects that include geometry, algebra I & II, data analysis, statistics ( 3 years)
• Science subjects that include a year each of chemistry, biology and physics (3 years)
• Social studies (3 years)
• One foreign language (1 year)