Assistance program
Adult Education - Basic Grants to States
$5.4 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 84.002
- What it does
- To fund local programs of adult education and literacy services, including workplace literacy services, family literacy services, and English literacy and integrated English literacy-civics education programs. Participation in these programs is limited to adults and out-of-school youths aged 16 and older who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent and who are not enrolled or required to be enrolled in a secondary school under State law. See 29 U.S.C. 3271.
- Who benefits
- Adults and out-of-school youths who are 16 years of age and older, who are not enrolled or required to be enrolled in secondary school under State law, and who lack sufficient mastery of basic educational skills to enable them to function effectively in society or do not have a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent, and have not achieved an equivalent level of education, or are unable to speak, read, or write the English language.
- Who applies
- Formula grants are made to designated eligible State agencies that under State law are responsible for administering or supervising statewide policy for adult education and literacy, including such entities as State educational agencies (SEAs), postsecondary agencies, or workforce agencies. State agencies must provide direct and equitable access to: local educational agencies; public or private nonprofit agencies; community-based organizations of demonstrated effectiveness; institutions of higher education; volunteer literacy organizations of demonstrated effectiveness; libraries; public housing authorities; nonprofit institutions not described above that have the ability to provide literacy services to adults and families; and consortia of the entities described above.
- Authorized by
- Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, (AEFLA), (Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)), 29 U.S.C. 3271 et seq.
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
Administering agencies
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments