Assistance program
Rural Education
$1.6 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Education, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 84.358
- What it does
- To provide financial assistance to rural districts to carry out activities to help improve the quality of teaching and learning in their schools.
- Who benefits
- Elementary and secondary schools, students, and teachers in rural schools.
- Who applies
- For SRSA, eligible recipients are local educational agencies (LEAs) in which (1) the total number of students in average daily attendance at all of the schools served by the LEA is less than 600 or where each school in the LEA is located in a county with a total population density of less than 10 persons per square mile; and (2) all of the schools served by the LEA are designated as rural by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) using the NCES school locale methodology in place at the time of enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) or the LEA is located in an area of the State defined as rural by a State governmental agency. For RLIS, eligible recipients are State educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs then must distribute funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) on a formula or competitive basis. An LEA is eligible to receive a grant under RLIS only if (1) at least 20 percent of the school children ages 5-17 in the LEA come from families with incomes below the poverty line; and (2) all of the schools served by the LEA are designated with a school locale code of 32, 33, 41, 42, or 43 under the NCES school locale methodology in place at the time of ESSA’s enactment. If an SEA chooses not to participate in the program, the Secretary uses the State's allocation to make direct grants to eligible LEAs in the State. If an LEA is eligible for both SRSA and RLIS, the LEA may choose in which program to participate.
- Authorized by
- Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended
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.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$33.1M
2%
Grants
$1.5B
98%
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