Rules for New College-Aid Program Outlined

Education Dept. stresses that it will not itself define a rigorous H.S. curriculum.

High schools may use a variety of methods to provide a “rigorous” curriculum that would allow their low-income graduates to qualify for a new federal college-grant program, the Department of Education announced last week.

Students who complete such a curriculum may be eligible to tap into a $790 million fund; an estimated 500,000 students will qualify for the aid in the 2006-07 academic year. The Academic Competitiveness Grants for college freshmen and sophomores and the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent, or SMART, grant program for juniors and seniors are meant to encourage students to pursue studies in mathematics, science, and certain foreign languages.

When the five-year, $4.5 billion program was passed by Congress in February, tucked inside the Deficit Reduction Act, lawmakers said the U.S. secretary of education should decide just what constituted a rigorous high school program of study. That provision hit a nerve with the states, which didn’t want the federal government determining the curricula of their high schools. ( "Bill Pushes ‘Rigorous’ Curricula," ...