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Student Financial Aid

Requirements to Maintain Federal TEACH Grant after Graduation

To avoid repaying the TEACH Grant after graduation, you must serve as a full-time teacher in a low-income school, as a highly qualified teacher and in a high-need field for at least four years within eight calendar years of leaving the program for which you received the TEACH Grant. 

For a listing of schools and teaching fields that qualify, visit the Nationwide List for the state in which you intend to teach.

Initial 120-Day Certification Requirement

As explained in your TEACH Grant Agreement to Serve, you are expected to confirm for the TEACH Grant servicer, FedLoan Servicing, in writing within 120 days of the date when you ceased to be enrolled (graduated or withdrew) from the school where you received a TEACH Grant that you are: 

  • Employed as a full-time teacher in accordance with the terms and conditions described in the Agreement to Serve or
  • Not yet employed as a full-time teacher but intend to meet the TEACH Grant service obligation.

FedLoan Servicing will notify you when your initial 120-day certification is due.

Note: If you withdraw from school before completing the program of study for which you received a TEACH Grant, and you do not submit this initial certification to FedLoan Servicing within 120 days from the date of your withdrawal, all TEACH Grants you received will be converted to Direct Unsubsidized Loans. You must then repay these loans to Department of Education, with interest charged from the date the TEACH Grants were disbursed. FedLoan Servicing will notify you if your TEACH Grants are converted to Direct Unsubsidized Loans.

Annual Certification Requirement

As explained in your Agreement to Serve, each year, you must provide the Department of Education’s TEACH Grant servicer, FedLoan Servicing, with

(1) Documentation showing that you have completed a full school year of qualifying teaching service or

(2) A certification that you intend to satisfy the terms and conditions of your TEACH Grant service obligation. The documentation of teaching or certification of intent must be submitted to FedLoan Servicing by an annual certification date.

The annual certification date that will apply to you and all TEACH Grant recipients is October 31. 

Each year at the beginning of October, the TEACH Grant servicer, FedLoan Servicing, will notify you and tell you how to submit your documentation of progress toward completing your TEACH Grant service obligation or your certification of intent to satisfy the service obligation.

If you do not submit your documentation of progress or certification of intent by October 31 and do not respond to reminder notices from FedLoan Servicing, all TEACH Grants you received will be converted to Direct Unsubsidized Loans. You must then repay these loans to the Department of Education, with interest charged from the date the TEACH Grants were disbursed (paid to you). FedLoan Servicing will notify you if your TEACH Grants are converted to Direct Unsubsidized Loans.

Teaching Obligation

To avoid repaying the TEACH Grant with interest, you must be a highly qualified, full-time teacher in a high-need subject area for at least four years at a school serving low-income students. You must complete the four years of teaching within eight years of finishing the program for which you received the grant. You incur a four-year teaching obligation for each educational program for which you received TEACH Grant funds; however, you may work off multiple four-year obligations simultaneously under certain circumstances.

Schools serving low-income students include any elementary or secondary school that is listed in the Department of Education’s Annual Directory of Designated Low-Income Schools for Teacher Cancellation Benefits.

Highly Qualified, Full-Time Teacher

You must perform your teaching service as a highly qualified teacher, which is defined in federal law in section 9101(23) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, or, for special education teachers, in section 602(10) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Check with the chief administrative officer at the school or educational service agency where you are teaching to find out if you meet the requirements to be considered “highly qualified.”

You must meet the state’s definition of a full-time teacher and spend the majority (at least 51 percent) of your time teaching one of the high-need subject areas.

Elementary teachers who teach many subjects would not be able to fulfill their service agreement.

High-Need Subject Areas

The Department of Education lists the following as high-need fields:

A field listed in the Nationwide List will satisfy a recipient's service obligation if:

  • The field is designated by a state as high need at the time the recipient begins qualifying teaching in that field in that state (even if that field subsequently loses its high-need designation for that state); or
  • The recipient is teaching in the field during or after the 2010-2011 school year, and the field was considered high need by the state in which the grant recipient is teaching during any award year the student received a TEACH grant (even if the high-need field is no longer designated as a high need for that state when the grant recipient begins qualifying teaching service).
For more information, visit the Federal TEACH Grant online.