Open Textbooks Pilot Program (84.116T) FY 2026

Open Textbooks Pilot Program (84.116T) FY 2026

This program is a federal grant path run by the U.S. Department of Education (through the Office of Postsecondary Education) and administered by the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration for postsecondary institutions and partners. The FY 2026 cycle is designed to support projects that create open textbooks and open educational materials in degree-granting programs, with a strong emphasis on high-enrollment courses and measurable student savings.

The announcement was marked as open as of the current check date, with an application deadline of June 23, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. If you are an institution or eligible public entity, this is one of the clearest federal levers for supporting open educational resources that can lower student costs while building reusable instructional assets.

Key details table

What this opportunity is and why it matters

The stated purpose is practical: support institutions in creating and scaling open course materials to reduce student costs in high-enrollment or high-demand programs. Unlike broad instructional innovation grants, the page makes two priorities explicit:

• New open textbooks and open course materials in degree programs should be a central output.
• Savings outcomes for students are a central design criterion.

This matters for institutions with large introductory and workforce-aligned programs where textbook costs are a recurring barrier. The program also matters because it does more than fund production. The requirements around open licensing and public dissemination make it a structural change opportunity: institutions are expected to build assets that can be reused, remixed, and adopted beyond one classroom.

For a college or state agency, this is both a budgeted curriculum intervention and a policy signal. The page emphasizes sustainability and scale rather than isolated pilots. In real terms, that means project reviewers usually reward teams that can show an explicit chain from material design to adoption to student impact.

Why this is different from standard textbook grants

Many calls in education funding mention affordability or digital modernization. This one is unusually explicit about open content requirements and measurable delivery outcomes:

• It is explicitly linked to reducing tuition-affordability pressure by replacing textbook spending with openly licensed alternatives.
• It prioritizes high-enrollment settings where student-level savings can be most visible.
• It requires institutions to think beyond one-off pilots: adoption by consortium members, reporting on student completion and savings, and clear dissemination planning are directly embedded in program logic.
• It sits in a federal ecosystem where the “open rule” and federal compliance rules shape what deliverables can and cannot be protected.

Because this is a federal discretionary grant, expectations are procedural as much as technical. You are not only proposing a curriculum idea; you are proposing a replicable system that can pass compliance review and be evaluated by measurable student and institutional outcomes.

Who is likely to fit this competition

This program is for organizations that can do this work at an institutional scale. Officially listed eligible applicants include:

• institutions of higher education,
• state and local educational entities,
• public and private nonprofit entities,
• and other public/private organizations that can implement state-level or regional pilots.

In practice, the strongest candidates are often:

1. State higher-education systems introducing open materials at campus or systemwide scale.
2. Large community or career-and-technical focused campuses with high enrollment pressure in common first-year or workforce gateway sequences.
3. Collaboratives where multiple institutions can coordinate adoption and provide credible implementation reporting.

The page does not frame this as an individual scholarship or fellowship program. If your goal is student-level funding only, this is not that route. If your organization can design and govern content production, licensing, and reporting, it is often a good fit.

Funding, scope, and cycle details

The grant page shows:

• Estimated total funding: $7,000,000.
• Expected number of awards: 4.
• Award ceiling displayed on the ED page: $200,000.

The page also includes prior-year history, indicating the program has run in earlier cycles and has consistently used a consortium/consumable model where a limited number of major projects receive substantial support.

The current cycle is described as FY 2026. There is also a note that the competition is administered with interagency coordination and that detailed notices can be in Federal Register workflow. The page indicates that the official funding opportunity announcement was forthcoming on the date shown. That means details beyond the page snapshot may be clarified as NOFO documents are released.

When writing your application strategy, do this:

• Treat the published page as the program intent source.
• Align your budget and scope assumptions to the amount and award count the page discloses.
• Keep an eye out for NOFO updates through the same page and Grants.gov listing.

What your application should prioritize in 2026

The page describes two core strategic outcomes: broad adoption and student benefit. A competitive concept should therefore combine:

• A clear curricular intervention: choose courses where open materials address a recurring student-cost burden.
• Strong baseline evidence: current enrollment, current student cost burden, current use of proprietary materials, and expected substitution pathways.
• Institutional commitment: demonstrate who owns implementation, who supports faculty adoption, and which systems will manage the materials over time.
• Sustainability beyond award close: one short pilot with no adoption path is less persuasive than a clear roll-forward.
• Monitoring plan: students enrolled and completed in open-textbook sections, savings impact, and course completion/withdrawal comparisons.

The performance indicators listed by the page help anchor this design:

• number of students in courses using project-produced open materials,
• number who complete those courses,
• withdrawal rates compared with equivalent commercial-textbook formats,
• average grade outcomes, and
• cost savings per student.

You should directly connect your proposal to these metrics in plain, measurable language.

Application process and practical timeline

The call is open and the close date is 06/23/2026 11:59 PM EDT. The page also provides a Grants.gov application pathway and a visible “Ready to apply?” path.

A practical planning approach:

1. Day 0–3: internal fit confirmation. Confirm applicant type against the official categories and lock a single project sponsor in leadership.

2. Week 1–2: program design. Identify target courses, build baseline data needs (enrollment, grades, withdrawal, student feedback), and define success targets for savings.

3. Week 2–4: materials plan and licensing plan. Prepare a dissemination strategy for final outputs and the program support materials that will make those outputs reusable.

4. Week 4–6: application package and internal review. Draft narrative, budget, and implementation workflow; run a cross-functional review (academic lead, legal/compliance lead, finance lead).

5. Submission week: Verify deadlines, final submission details in Grants.gov workflow, and all contact details before filing.

If the official NOFO or technical assistance materials expand details near your submission date, incorporate those additions without reopening the entire strategy.

Core compliance point: open licensing requirement (“open rule”)

This is often the highest-risk area for teams who have strong educational ideas but limited legal process.

The ED program page includes an extensive open-rule FAQ. In plain terms, competitive grant deliverables that are copyrightable often must be openly licensed so they can be used, reproduced, and remixed broadly. The page includes examples of acceptable licenses and emphasizes requirements like public access, attribution, and broad downstream rights for created works.

Important distinctions the page clarifies:

• The open rule generally applies to final grant deliverables and program support materials created with Department funds.
• Pre-existing materials or materials not funded through the grant are not generally pulled in.
• The open rule does not automatically cover purely administrative correspondence or all internal process artifacts.
• If the project is an exception case, the exception is handled through explicit program-level rules and documented agency guidance.

This means your project should avoid vague language and instead map each output to licensing status:

• What is the deliverable?
• Is it newly created?
• Will it be licensed openly?
• What support materials must be openly shared?

Teams that do this well reduce review friction significantly because legal questions are reduced before award decisions.

Common mistakes that can hurt applications

1) Under-designing the dissemination model

If you only describe “we will publish a textbook,” reviewers and program staff may treat that as incomplete. A strong application should explain where, how, and in what conditions the materials will be used by external institutions or faculty.

2) Ignoring license obligations in the design phase

The biggest avoidable rejection pattern is treating open licensing as a final formality. If licensing is not integrated into your production workflow, you can lose time and risk compliance issues.

3) Submitting vague savings assumptions

“This will lower costs” is not enough. The performance logic on the page pushes for measurable outcomes:

• enrollment,
• completion,
• withdrawal,
• grade impacts,
• number of instructors and institutions adopting the content,
• and direct cost savings for students.

4) Treating this as a short proof-of-concept only

The program language supports sustainability and scale. If your timeline is only for one semester with no adoption pathway, the application is likely weaker than those that show cross-course or cross-institution rollout logic.

5) Failing to reconcile program history patterns

This is a recurring federal initiative, and the page context includes prior-year award cycles. If your budget and reporting model do not fit prior grant mechanics, your team should explicitly state what changed and how you will manage the updated structure.

6) Not planning for reporting architecture

The page explicitly notes performance reporting expectations. Teams should prepare data collection and reporting processes that can generate periodic performance evidence, especially around student outcomes and savings.

Frequently asked questions

Is this still open if a date is listed as “open” on the program page?

At the check date, yes. But this is true only if the deadline has not passed and your cycle is aligned with the open filing window.

Is this meant only for institutions that already publish Open Educational Resources?

No. It is meant to support institutions that can move from proprietary materials to open alternatives, especially in high-enrollment contexts.

Is the grant for individuals?

No. This is institutionally anchored. The eligible applicant language targets organizations and agencies, not individual student-level aid recipients.

Is the grant only for textbook digitization?

No. The emphasis is on creating and expanding open textbooks and course materials, which can include support systems needed for adoption and instructional implementation.

Do we need a pre-confirmed amount for each institution?

The page provides funding totals, expected award count, and an award ceiling figure. Use those as your baseline and then align your budget to what is realistic for a single proposal.

Where is the official filing link?

The official ED page links to Grants.gov and indicates that applications are managed there for filing and tracking. That is the route to use for submission at the check date.

How to move from reading to filing

If you are preparing an institutional submission, this is a practical checklist:

• Finalize your eligible entity designation.
• Select one high-enrollment target area that demonstrates clear student impact.
• Define a baseline cost-comparison model (with assumptions documented).
• Design a materials pipeline that includes open licensing and dissemination from the start.
• Build a reporting plan tied to the listed performance measures.
• Confirm faculty, project management, and finance responsibilities.
• Review ED and DOL contact points for program-specific clarifications before submission.

The official listing includes direct contacts (Robin Dabney and related program staff). Use those channels for specific clarifications, especially around interpretation of open-rule scope and timing.

Official links

• Official program page (ED): https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-higher-education/improvement-of-postsecondary-education/open-textbooks-pilot-program-84116t
• Simpler Grants listing with same opportunity metadata: https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/033d1280-4350-4f9d-8167-8a9bf8528f37
• Grant filing record / Grants.gov page path shown by ED listing: https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/362511

If you are deciding before June 23, 2026, the practical strategy is to submit only after your team can prove a complete licensing and reporting approach, not before. This competition is most competitive when projects are smaller in concept but stronger in execution readiness.