A handful of university SLP programs across the country are operating with $1M to $3M in federal funding that flows directly to their academic departments, bypassing central administration entirely. Most of their peers have never applied for this money. Many haven't even heard of it.
OSEP personnel preparation grants, authorized under IDEA Part D and identified by CFDA number 84.325K, are the most reliable large-scale federal funding mechanism available to university SLP and audiology training programs. They're not widely discussed outside the special education grant world, which means programs that do know about them have a real competitive advantage.
This post covers what these grants fund, who's eligible, what makes a proposal competitive, and how to apply. If your program trains SLPs for school-based settings, early intervention, or underserved populations, you're likely more eligible than you realize.
What Are OSEP Personnel Preparation Grants?
OSEP stands for the Office of Special Education Programs, which sits within the U.S. Department of Education. OSEP administers grants under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and Part D of that law specifically authorizes funding for personnel development to improve services for children with disabilities.1
The Personnel Preparation grants (CFDA 84.325K) fund graduate-level training programs that prepare clinicians to work with children and youth who have disabilities. For university SLP and audiology programs, that means training students for school-based placements, early intervention settings, and specialty areas like AAC, autism spectrum disorders, and high-intensity communication needs.
Importantly, these are not research grants. They fund training program operations: the infrastructure and support that makes a strong clinical preparation program possible. What the money covers includes:
- Student stipends and tuition support
- Faculty time for supervision and curriculum development
- Program infrastructure and curriculum enhancements
- Evaluation and data collection systems
If you've been thinking about OSEP as a research-only funding stream, that's the first misconception to set aside.
Award Size and Timeline: What to Expect
These are five-year grants, which is one of the most appealing features. You're not scrambling to renew annually. You're building something with a multi-year commitment behind it.
Award totals range from approximately $1M to $3M+ over the five-year period, which works out to roughly $200K to $600K per year depending on the scope of the program. And after the initial five years, programs can apply for continuation funding, so a strong program can sustain OSEP support for a decade or more.
The numbers from recently funded programs give you a clear sense of what's possible:
- Hampton University received $1.26M to train 24 SLP scholars for high-poverty school settings2
- North Carolina Central University received $1.19M for its SLP personnel preparation program3
- Utah State University received $3M across combined OSEP awards
- University of Nebraska received $1.25M for SLP workforce training
- University of Illinois secured $1.1M for REACH-SLP, training 10 SLPs from underrepresented backgrounds for high-intensity communication needs4
- University of Nevada Reno received $1.3M focused on rural and frontier SLP workforce development5
- UT Health San Antonio's Project ASPIRE received $1.2M
- Fontbonne University has received over $8M total from OSERS grants across multiple award cycles6
The common thread: these programs focused on underserved populations, documented workforce shortages, and had clear, measurable training outcomes. That's the template.
Who's Eligible: Framing Your Program for OSEP
The base eligibility requirement is straightforward: you need to be an institution of higher education (IHE) with a graduate-level SLP or audiology training program. But the framing is where most programs either connect or miss.
OSEP grants fund programs that train clinicians to serve children with disabilities. That's the lens everything runs through. Your program might not think of itself in those terms, but if you're placing students in schools, training for early intervention, or developing specialty competencies in AAC or autism, you have the foundation.7
Three factors create competitive preference and meaningfully increase your application score:
Rural and underserved service areas. If your program trains students for rural school districts, tribal communities, or areas with documented provider shortages, that's a significant advantage. OSEP consistently prioritizes geographic equity.
Students from underrepresented backgrounds. Programs at HBCUs, HSIs, and similar institutions have strong track records here. Hampton, NCCU, and Fontbonne are all examples of programs that have competed successfully using this framing. But any program with intentional recruitment from underrepresented backgrounds can make this argument.
Documented workforce shortage areas. This is where ASHA's workforce data becomes your friend. The national shortage of school-based SLPs is well documented, and state-level data from education agencies can supplement national figures to make a specific, localized case.
The practical exercise: look at where your graduates go. If a meaningful percentage are working in schools, early intervention programs, or underserved clinical settings, you have the raw material for a competitive application. The framing challenge is translating your program's existing strengths into OSEP-eligible language.
Why This Grant Is Different: Department-Direct Funding
Here's the feature that most program directors don't fully appreciate until someone explains it directly.
Most university SLP programs generate clinical revenue. And in most cases, that revenue doesn't stay in the department. It flows to central administration, where it's absorbed into the broader institutional budget. The department sees little or none of it. This is one of the persistent budget frustrations for clinic directors who watch their programs generate revenue they can't control.
OSEP grants don't work that way. The money flows directly to the academic department. Faculty salaries can be partially funded, stipends go to students, and infrastructure gets built inside the department, not above it.
This distinction changes the financial calculus entirely. For a program that's been operating with a tight departmental budget and limited leverage over institutional resources, an OSEP grant isn't just a funding opportunity. It's a way to increase real operating capacity without needing administrative approval for every dollar.
Faculty release time is a concrete example. If the grant covers a portion of a faculty member's salary in exchange for curriculum development or enhanced supervision, that's capacity the department wouldn't otherwise have. The same goes for student stipends: you can recruit students who might not otherwise be able to afford graduate training, which directly advances equity goals without an additional institutional budget ask.
How to Apply: Grants.gov and the Annual Cycle
Applications go through Grants.gov. When you're searching, use CFDA number 84.325K, which is the identifier for OSEP Personnel Preparation grants for speech-language pathology and audiology programs. Cycles typically open in the fall, though the exact timing shifts year to year, so checking Grants.gov and OSEP's website for the current fiscal year's Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) is the right move.
The key components of a competitive application:
Program description. Who you train, for what settings, with what competencies, and over what timeline. Be specific about placement sites, specialty training, and the population of students with disabilities your graduates will serve.
Workforce shortage documentation. Use ASHA's national workforce data, supplemented by state education agency data showing SLP vacancy rates in the districts where your graduates work. The more localized and specific, the stronger your case.
Evaluation plan. OSEP wants to know how you'll measure success. This means tracking student placement outcomes, documenting supervision hours, and measuring the extent to which graduates are serving children with disabilities in shortage areas. Clear metrics and a credible evaluation design are essential.
Budget narrative. Itemize how the funds will be used. Stipend amounts, tuition support, faculty time (in percentage of effort), and any infrastructure costs should all be justified specifically.
Logic model. Most federal education grants expect a logic model connecting your inputs and activities to your expected outputs and outcomes. If you haven't built one before, OSEP's technical assistance resources include examples.
Before you start writing, read at least three to five funded project abstracts. OSEP posts them, and they're also available through ERIC. The language patterns matter. Programs that have won use specific disability-focused framing consistently throughout, not just in the eligibility section.
What Funded Programs Look Like: Real Examples
Looking at funded programs helps you understand not just what OSEP wants, but how programs have framed their work to be competitive.
Hampton University's grant funded 24 SLP scholars specifically destined for high-poverty school settings. The HBCU context, the school-based focus, and the clear pipeline from training to placement in shortage areas created a well-aligned proposal.
The University of Illinois's REACH-SLP program took a different angle: 10 SLPs from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, trained specifically for high-intensity communication needs. The intersection of equity in the SLP workforce and specialty clinical training for a documented high-need area is a combination that OSEP responds to.
University of Nevada Reno built its case around geography. Rural and frontier Nevada has genuine SLP workforce shortages, and the program's ability to document those shortages and connect training outcomes to filling them made for a specific, credible application.
Fontbonne's multi-grant history shows what's possible over time. Once you've demonstrated strong outcomes with one OSEP award, you have the track record to compete effectively for continuation and new awards. The $8M+ total they've received didn't happen all at once.
The throughline across all of these: specificity. A program that trains SLPs broadly is harder to fund than a program that trains SLPs for Title I schools in rural Nevada, or for AAC with children who have complex communication needs at HBCUs. If your program already has a niche, lean into it in your application.
Ready to Strengthen Your Program's Infrastructure?
If you're pursuing OSEP personnel preparation grants, your grant reporting requirements will include tracking student clinical hours, supervision compliance, and training outcomes. ClinicNote's documentation and reporting features are built for exactly that kind of oversight in university clinic settings. If you want to see how it works, schedule a demo and we'll walk you through it.
Sources
- https://sites.ed.gov/idea/about-idea/#IDEA-Part-D
- https://home.hamptonu.edu/communications/hampton-university-receives-1-26-million-grant-to-train-speech-language-pathologists/
- https://www.nccu.edu/news/nccu-receives-119-million-osep-grant-train-speech-language-pathologists
- https://communication.illinois.edu/news/2021/reach-slp-program
- https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2022/osep-grant-slp
- https://www.fontbonne.edu/news/fontbonne-receives-osers-grant/
- https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/84-325K/index.html