Teaching Obligation

To avoid repaying the TEACH Grant with interest (having it convert to a Direct Unsubsidized Student Loan) 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, although you may work off multiple four-year obligations simultaneously under certain circumstances. Specific definitions of these terms are included below.

Highly-Qualified Teacher - You must perform the teaching service as a highly-qualified teacher, which is defined in federal law.

Full-Time Teacher - You must meet the state’s definition of a full time teacher and spend the majority 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 Field

• Bilingual Education and English Language Acquisition
• Foreign Language
• Mathematics
• Reading Specialist
• Science
• Special Education
• Other teacher shortage areas documented as high-need by the Federal government, a State government, or a local education agency, approved by the U.S. Department of Education, and listed in the Department of Education’s Annual Teacher Shortage Area Nationwide Listing (http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/pol/tsa.html) at the time you receive the TEACH Grant (even if that field is no longer high need when you begin teaching).

North Dakota Teacher Shortage Areas 2008-09 & 2009-10:

Subject Areas – Grades 9-12:

Agriculture

Art

Business & Office Technology/Business Education

Career Clusters

Computer Education

Driver & Traffic Safety Education

English Language Arts/English as a Second Language

Family & Consumer Science

Health Careers

Information Technology

Languages/Native American Languages

Marketing Education

Mathematics

Music

Science

Social Studies

Special Education Programming

Technology Education (Industrial Arts)

Trade & Industrial Education

Minnesota Teacher Shortage Areas 2008-09 & 2009-10:

Bilingual/Bicultural

Chemistry

Earth and Space Science

English as a Second Language

Keyboarding

Mathematics

Physics

Science (grades 5-8)

Spanish

Special Education—

Deaf & Hard of Hearing

Developmental Disorders

Early Child

Emotional Behavioral Disorders

Learning Disabilities

Work Based Learning

World Languages

Schools Serving Low-Income Students - Schools serving low-income students include elementary or secondary schools listed in the Department of Education’s Annual Directory of Designated Low-Income Schools for Teacher Cancellation Benefits at https://www.tcli.ed.gov/CBSWebApp/tcli/TCLIPubSchoolSearch.jsp.

UND TEACH Grant/Loan Eligible Programs

Graduate (Master's Degree):

Reading Education

Special Education

General Studies - may qualify with documentation from the College of Education

Educational Leadership - may qualify with documentation from the College of Education