TEACH to encourage students to become teachers

Largely lost in the debate about last year’s budget reconciliation legislation that increased the maximum Pell Grant and financed that and other new spending by slashing federal payments to student loan providers was a new program that seeks to encourage students to enter the teaching profession.

The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant Program (TEACH) provides up to $4,000 a year in grant aid to college students who plan to become teachers, as well as current teachers who pursue graduate degrees. Grant recipients agree to serve as a full-time teacher in a “high need” school and teach a “high need” subject for at least four academic years within eight years of finishing the program for which the person received the aid.

Legislators have long searched for ways to increase the number of qualified teachers and prolong their stay in the profession, and the TEACH program, set to be funded at $325 million over five years starting this summer, is a move in that direction. Read more in Inside Higher Ed online.