500,000 students for Development and Validation grants; and 100,000, 500,000, and 1,000,000 students for Scale-up grants). Comment:
Several commenters recommended that the Department
revise Selection Criterion E(2)(d) regarding the manner in which project cost estimates are provided.
A few commenters
recommended that the Department consider total costs per student and total costs per student per year.
One commenter recommended
that the Department consider project costs along a timeline (i.e., at one year, five years, and ten years) and require grantees to evaluate project cost estimates in self-evaluations. Another commenter recommended that the Department consider costs per student per hour of programming to ensure a more accurate and fair measure of project cost. Discussion:
We agree that clarifying Selection Criterion E(4)
(proposed Selection Criterion E(2)(d)) regarding the manner in which eligible applicants should provide project cost estimates is warranted.
We are therefore revising Selection Criterion
E(4) (proposed Selection Criterion E(2)(d)) to specify that the Secretary will consider the eligible applicant’s estimate of the cost of the proposed project, which includes start-up and operating costs per student per year (including indirect costs) for reaching the total number of students proposed to be served by the project.
Thus, the Secretary will consider estimates of 256