Overview
The Higher Education Challenge (HEC) program provides funding to eligible applicants to help ensure a competent, qualified, and diverse workforce will exist to serve the food and agricultural sciences system.
The HEC program is intended to strengthen institutional capacities, such as curriculum, faculty, scientific instrumentation, instruction delivery systems, and student recruitment and retention. HEC projects respond to identified state, regional, national, or international educational needs in the food and agricultural sciences, or in rural economic, community, and business development.
Eligibility
- 1862 Land-grant Institutions
- 1890 Land-grant Institutions
- 1994 Land-grant Institutions
- Hispanic-Serving Institutions
- State Controlled Institutions of Higher Ed
- Non-Land-grant Colleges of Agriculture (NLGCA)
- U.S. public or private nonprofit colleges and universities offering a baccalaureate or first professional degree in at least one discipline or area of the food and agricultural sciences
- Land-grant colleges and universities, (including land-grant institutions in the Insular Areas)
- Other colleges and universities with demonstrated capacity to deliver high‑quality instruction in the food and agricultural sciences
Featured Grant
Higher Education Challenge Grants Program
The purpose of HEC, under assistance listing 10.217, is to strengthen institutional capacities, including curriculum, faculty, scientific instrumentation, and student recruitment and retention. The HEC program is focused on developing and improving formal master’s or doctorate degree-level food and...
Previously Funded Projects
Program type
Competitive Grant Programs
Page last updated: July 6, 2026