Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Charter Schools Program (CSP): Grants for Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities (Credit Enhancement)

The U.S. Department of Education, through the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, is inviting applications for the fiscal year 2025 under the Charter Schools Program (CSP)—Grants for Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities. The purpose of this grant is to provide competitive funding to public and private nonprofit entities that demonstrate innovative strategies to help charter schools access financing for acquiring, constructing, and renovating facilities. The initiative is intended to bolster the physical infrastructure of charter schools to support their educational mission. Funding from the program is intended to enhance the availability of loans and bond financing for charter schools. Grantees must use the funds by depositing them into a reserve account, which can be used to guarantee or insure loans and leases, facilitate financing by identifying lending sources, and support the issuance of bonds. The funds may not be used for direct project activities or subgrants and are to be used exclusively to support facilities-related objectives such as real property acquisition, construction, renovation, and necessary predevelopment costs. All expenditures must be reasonable, allowable, and must align with federal, state, and local requirements. Eligible applicants include public entities (such as state or local governments), private nonprofit entities, and consortia composed of such organizations. Applicants must demonstrate nonprofit status with appropriate documentation. Applications must include specific required forms detailing non-grant funds, budget projections, and, for past grantees, risk levels of served charter schools. The Department emphasizes the importance of strong business and organizational capacity, effective project design, and experienced project personnel. Competitive preference priority will be awarded to applications that aim to expand charter school choice in communities with high needs, particularly where schools require improvement or serve low-income student populations. The application process opened on May 16, 2025, with the final deadline for application submission set for June 25, 2025. A notice of intent to apply is encouraged by June 16, 2025, though not required. A separate deadline for intergovernmental review is scheduled for August 25, 2025. Interested applicants are encouraged to participate in a pre-application webinar, the details for which will be available on the Department’s website. Applicants are evaluated on four primary selection criteria: quality of project design and significance, quality of project services, organizational capacity, and quality of project personnel, with a maximum score of 100 points and up to 6 additional points available under the competitive preference priority. Grants awarded are discretionary, with estimated available funds totaling $60 million. Award sizes range between $2 million and $20 million, with an average anticipated award of $16 million. Successful applicants will enter into a Performance Agreement with the Department before fund drawdown. Grant recipients are expected to participate in annual project directors’ meetings and comply with all performance reporting requirements. For more information, applicants can contact Thea Fowles at [email protected] or (202) 987–1727.