Proposals may be submitted by any public secondary school. For FY 2001, support is limited to grades 9-12. The submitting school must show a significant commitment to the program. Such commitment may be, but is not limited to, previous experiences, the ability to provide matching funds, or support from the school's administration. A school may only receive one granter per fiscal year.
Awards are to be made on the basis of a competitive application.
Grant applications submitted under this program must certify that the research to be conducted will be performed under a cooperative agreement with at least one 1862 or 1890 Land-Grant college or university. This does not preclude 1994 institutions from working jointly on projects under this program so long as the cooperative agreement requirement is met. Non-Federal matching support is encouraged but not required. The FY 2000 and FY 2001 competitions were combined to lower administrative costs. For this combined competition, there was no limit on the number of proposals an eligible institution could submit and there are no limits on the total funds that could be awarded to any one institution.