Assistance program
Federal Pell Grant Program
$260.5 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Federal Student Aid, Education, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 84.063
- What it does
- To provide eligible undergraduate postsecondary students who have demonstrated financial need with grant assistance to help meet educational expenses.
- Who benefits
- Undergraduate students and students pursuing a teaching certificate that are U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens and meet financial need criteria. Students must be: regular students in an eligible program and enrolled in institutions of higher education, making satisfactory academic progress. Incarcerated students, except those incarcerated in local penal facilities, are ineligible. Students must sign a statement of educational purpose, not owe a refund on a Title IV grant, and not be in default on a Title IV loan. Eligible males that are at least 18 years old and born after December 31, 1959, can receive aid only if they have registered with the Selective Service.
- Who applies
- Undergraduate students and students pursuing a teaching certificate enrolled as regular students in an eligible program at an eligible institution of higher education and making satisfactory academic progress. The applicants must be U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens and have a high school diploma (or its equivalent); or, for students enrolled prior to July 1, 2012, a demonstrated ability to benefit from the program offered; or, have successfully completed six credits.
- Authorized by
- Higher Education Act of 1965, Title IV, Part A, Subpart 1, as amended.
- Program site
- http://www.ifap.ed.gov ↗
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.
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