In November of 2025, the Department of Education opened a grant competition for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The Department directed $169 million to cover four of its designated areas of need:

• Advancing AI to Improve Educational Outcomes of Postsecondary Students and Ensuring Future Educators and Students Have Foundational Exposure to AI and Computer Science
• Promoting Civil Discourse on College and University Campuses
• Supporting Institutions in Changing Accrediting Agencies and Supporting the Creation of New Accrediting Agencies
• Creation of New High-Quality Short-Term Programs and Expansion of Existing High-Quality Short-Term Programs

As such, there was no FY25 funding available to cover other programs such as Basic Needs, the Postsecondary Success Grant, or the Rural Postsecondary Education Development program, to name a few. 

The ACCT Now piece, FIPSE Funding Under the Second Trump Administration, takes a deeper look on how the Trump Administration transformed FIPSE.

On Monday of this week, the Department announced the FIPSE grant awardees. Here is a look at how community colleges fared:

• Out of a total of 72 recipients,17 community colleges were awarded FIPSE funding, which is 24 percent of all awardees
• Out of the total of $169,224,056 awarded,community colleges received 21 percentof the funds, amounting to $35,806,990
• 9 community colleges were given funding for the Short-term Programarea of need; community colleges were 41 percent of award recipients in this category
• In this same area of need,community colleges got 38 percent of the funds($19,819,510 out of $52,084,897).

Overall, the majority of community college representation was in the Short-Term Programs area of need. Specifically, out of all the 17 community college FIPSE grant recipients, 9 of those were awarded for the Short-Term Programs area of need, which is 53 percent. Similarly, when looking at dollar amounts, 55 percent of the $35,806,990 in FIPSE funds awarded to community colleges were in the Short-Term Programs category, amounting to a total of $19,819,510.

ACCT congratulates these 17 community colleges, especially since applicants had a three-week turnaround time to submit their applications.

Table 1.1 presents a closer look at the individual institutions that were awarded FIPSE funding, detailing the area of need they were awarded for along with the total amount each one received.

Genesis Santiago is the Senior Government Relations Associate at ACCT