U.S. Department of Education details FY2025 Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions competition and application requirements

Margarita Helene Melendez, program lead and competition manager for the Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions (DHSI) program at the U.S. Department of Education, provided a prerecorded webinar overview of the FY2025 DHSI individual development grant competition, including deadlines, eligibility, allowable and unallowable activities, selection criteria, evidence requirements and technical instructions for submitting applications on grants.gov.

The webinar matters to colleges and universities that serve significant Hispanic and low-income student populations because the Department estimates approximately $66,944,786 in new funds and said it plans to make about 116 awards; individual development grants may provide up to $600,000 per year and up to $3,000,000 across the five-year project period. Melendez emphasized the application deadline of 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, July 3, 2025, and urged applicants to apply early and to ensure that their Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) is current so grants.gov will accept their submission.

Melendez said the official application instructions are the Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) published in the Federal Register and that the NIA, statutes and regulations supersede any webinar guidance. She reiterated that applicants must follow the NIA and the common instructions on grants.gov, submit only one application per institution for an individual development grant in this competition, and include the required DHSI Program Profile form in the "Other Attachments" section of the grants.gov package; omission of that profile may render an application ineligible.

She described who may apply: institutions that are eligible for Title V, Part A programs in the current eligibility determination (the Department reviews IPEDS data annually and issues eligibility letters via the HEPAS system). Melendez warned that holding certain active grants (for example, grants listed under Title III, Part A or Part B such as the Strengthening Institutions Program or other listed MSI programs) can make an institution ineligible for DHSI in this competition, while holders of some DHSI-managed grants (DHSI, HSI STEM, POHA or certain FIPSE awards) remain eligible. She advised applicants to include a copy of their eligibility letter from HEPAS in the submission and to consult their sponsored programs office if unsure.

Melendez walked through the selection criteria and scoring: eight statutory selection criteria remain in place, projects must present a comprehensive development plan (CDP) addressing academic programs, institutional management and fiscal stability, and projects must be implementable within the program's five-year timeline. She stressed that the project design must include a logic model and at least one promising-evidence study (per the What Works Clearinghouse evidence tiers) to demonstrate a rationale; without a logic model an application cannot receive maximum points for that factor. Peer reviewers assigned to panels (three nonfederal reviewers and one federal panel monitor) will score each application according to the published factors and rank-order will be developed through the Department's review processes.

On allowable and unallowable activities, Melendez noted Title V allows a broad range of activities, including construction and renovation, library and lab upgrades, teacher education programs, distance education improvements and establishment or enhancement of an endowment (subject to a 25% cap and a 100% nonfederal matching requirement if an endowment is established). She cautioned that salaries for college presidents or equivalent chief executives generally cannot be paid with DHSI funds due to the supplement-not-supplant requirement, and that scholarships and most direct student financial assistance are generally not allowable except in limited training contexts. Applicants are screened for unauthorized activities and inclusion of such activities can reduce award amounts or jeopardize eligibility.

Regarding competitive preference priorities (CPPs) and the invitational priority (IP), Melendez said there is no absolute priority this year but two CPPs — rural campus designation and status as a new potential grantee (no active DHSI award in the past five years) — are available and each is worth 10 points (all-or-nothing). She instructed applicants to demonstrate rural status using the NCES College Navigator locale codes for their campus ZIP code and to place responses in a separately labeled section of the narrative and the abstract. The single invitational priority (no points) signals administration interest in promoting student flexibility (distance education, apprenticeships, accelerated credentials) and applicants who choose to respond should also label that response clearly.

Melendez also summarized evaluation and reporting expectations: applicants must submit an evaluation plan describing data collection, analysis and how formative and summative results will show progress toward CDP goals; applicants should include project-specific performance measures and are encouraged to include the program-level GPRA measures used by DHSI for federal reporting. She urged applicants to include baseline data for objectives, to cite promising evidence studies on the evidence form (including population and setting), and to show how the evaluation will support midcourse corrections and summative judgments.

On budget and fiscal controls, Melendez said applicants must provide a narrative justification explaining how requested items are necessary, allocable and reasonable under 2 CFR part 200 (Uniform Guidance), complete the ED 524 budget form across five years, and submit a detailed budget justification by line item and year. She highlighted a new selection factor requiring detailed descriptions of fiscal controls and accounting procedures and noted that grantees must develop an internal controls manual as a term and condition of an award.

Melendez closed with technical submission guidance: verify and update the institution's UEI (grants.gov will reject applications with an invalid UEI), confirm Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) credentials, upload the program profile in the Other Attachments form, ensure the project narrative (recommended 55 pages) and all attachments upload correctly, and plan submissions early because technical and administrative fixes (AOR, UEI, large file uploads) can take days to resolve. She provided the shared inbox hsi@ed.gov for competition questions and referenced related documents and live Q&A sessions listed on grants.gov.

Melendez provided contact information and multiple resource links on grants.gov including the NIA, application booklet, evidence-form instructions and logic-model resources; she reminded applicants that the NIA is the controlling guidance and that live Q&A sessions would follow the prerecorded webinar.