Applying for an Iowa Student Loan Teacher Career Establishment Grant
First-year teachers in qualifying subjects like mathematics, science, English as a second language, foreign languages, music, agriculture, industrial arts, and special education can apply for the grants online.
The program, named the Teacher Career Establishment Grant Program, is designed to help new teachers with living expenses. The grants can be used to help repay student loans and reduce student loan debt but can also be used for any other expenses. Iowa Student Loan doesn’t place restrictions on how the money can be spent.
The Iowa Student Loan grants are intended to help recruit and retain new teachers in Iowa. The program is open to all recent graduates, regardless of your current state of residence or where you went to college.
In order to be eligible for the grant program, you must be contracted to begin your first teaching job after Jan. 1, 2011, and you must teach in an Iowa classroom. You may not have taught in any other state prior to teaching in Iowa.
State Hopes Financial Aid Will Attract More Teachers
The Iowa grant program has been established in response to a growing need among Iowa school districts for qualified teachers.
A 2009 survey conducted by the Iowa Department of Education reported that the state had nearly twice as many math teachers who were ready to retire as it had incoming math teachers. The same survey also showed that the ratio of retiring teachers to new teachers in other academic shortage areas, like physics, was similarly lopsided