(LifeWire) - The Academic Competitiveness Grant Basics:
The Academic Competitiveness Grant awards $750 to deserving students in their first year of college and $1,300 in the second year. The grant is a precursor of sorts to the National SMART grant, which helps pay for costs in promising students' third and fourth academic years. Unlike the SMART grant, which is awarded for science and math, the Academic Competitiveness Grant is not subject-specific. The ACG must be bestowed in conjunction with a Pell grant, which mostly goes to students in families making less than $20,000 a year.
Qualifying for an Academic Competitiveness Grant:
Some of the basic requirements for eligibility include American citizenship; full-time on-track progress toward a four-year degree; a 3.0 grade point average from freshman year if applying to receive the grant for the sophomore year; and a completed "rigorous" high school program. That could mean honors programs recognized by states, specific advanced placement classes, programs authorized by the State Scholars Initiative of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, or a higher-level curriculum of four years of English, three years of math, three years of science, three years of social studies and one year of a foreign language. The Secretary of Education provides a list of rigorous programs for each state on www.ed.gov.
Applying for the Academic Competitiveness Grant:
The Academic Competitiveness Grant does not have its own application. Prospective recipients must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid at www.fafsa.ed.gov. Those who are notified that they qualify for the Pell grant can then bring proof of their rigorous high school study to the financial aid office of their intended college to pursue the Academic Competitiveness Grant.
