Higher education budgets are under constant stress and strain so news of the U.S. Department of Education announcing the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) has been well received.
This new fund is focussed on seven new funding priorities which will direct $167 million toward Artificial Intelligence, accreditation reform, and short-term workforce programs with funding awards expected to be announced by December 31, 2025.
The question for institutions therefore is whether or not to apply, and if so, how could the funding be spent…
What is the FIPSE grant?
The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education – Special Projects (FIPSE-SP) is a competitive federal grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Education.
Its purpose is to support innovative, action-oriented projects in higher education that address urgent national needs. Funding is to be allocated across four key areas:
- Advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education
- Promoting civil discourse on college campuses
- Promoting accreditation reform
- Capacity-building for high-quality short-term programs
$50 million has been dedicated specifically to AI, making it a central priority. Proposals that leverage AI technology to improve educational outcomes for students, or that build foundational AI and computer science exposure for students and future educators are likely to be preferably considered.
Studies have shown that AI-based learning tools should serve as supportive allies rather than dominant arbiters of educational practice meaning any technology introduced must be done so in a way that is considerate to maintaining educational integrity.
Here we explore 7 different tools you can consider for the FIPSE grant.
Tools to buy with the FIPSE grant
1: Note taking and lecture support - Genio
The challenge of effective note taking is a major barrier for many students, particularly the "New Majority" of working adults, parents, and first-generation learners.
Genio Notes helps students of all abilities take meaningful notes from class and lecture - whether in-person or online. Students follow a structured process of capturing audio, adding slides and taking brief time stamped notes alongside, and then returning to the recording and transcript for ongoing study.
Designed to facilitate proactive participation that scaffolds toward active learning, Genio Notes removes the cognitive friction of manual recording and organization, allowing students to focus on synthesizing lecture content.
- The impact data: The independent LXD study of over 1,400 students, showed that Genio achieved statistically significant results across all target areas, including a GPA increase (3.34 to 3.46) and a reduction in student dropout intentions (7% to 5%).
- FIPSE alignment: The tool directly supports student learning and inclusion by empowering students with features like the AI Outline and custom Quiz Me functions. Furthermore, its use is correlated with reduced academic stress, supporting the grant’s focus on improving educational outcomes.
2: Adaptive learning platforms (LMS)
FIPSE explicitly calls for utilizing AI for true personalized learning. Modern Learning Management Systems (LMS) increasingly incorporate native adaptive features that use simple logic and prerequisite tracking to dynamically adjust a student's learning path.
These built-in tools allow instructors to set up content release conditions, create differentiated assignments based on previous assessment scores, and hide or reveal modules to personalize the learning experience at scale; all without requiring a separate third-party system.
- The impact data: Institutions leveraging LMS-native adaptive features report an increase in course completion rates by an average of 12% in high-enrolment general education courses, primarily due to the immediate, automated scaffolding of content.
- FIPSE alignment: Focusing on existing LMS infrastructure aligns with the grant's goal of institutional capacity-building and sustainability. This approach ensures that personalized learning features are accessible to all faculty, reduces data silos, and directly meets the priority to "personalize learning" through scalable, integrated technology solutions.
3: Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS)
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) leverage AI to provide personalized, one-on-one instructional support that is highly scalable across large student populations.
Systems like those used by Duolingo for Education (or platforms focused on subject-specific tutoring) model student knowledge and adapt their feedback and instruction dynamically.
- The impact data: Comprehensive literature reviews confirm that AI integration into ITS has a demonstrably positive impact on student motivation and achievement, particularly within STEM fields. ITS enables real-time feedback loops that adjust to the learner's input.
- FIPSE alignment: This capability allows institutions to deliver highly scalable, high-impact tutoring, addressing the diverse needs of large student populations while managing cognitive load and fulfilling the grant's goal of using AI to provide high-quality instructional resources.
4: AI-driven assessment and feedback tools - Graide
A key operational priority for the FIPSE AI grant is improving educator efficiency to free up time for instruction and engagement.
Graide is an AI-powered grading and feedback platform designed for higher and further education. It learns from existing marking schemes and human-generated feedback to automate the marking of assignments and provide consistent, personalized feedback to students in text, audio, or video formats.
- The impact data: Graide's primary benefit is in time saving and consistency. Universities using Graide report that it can reduce the time spent on marking by up to 75% compared to traditional methods. Furthermore, the systematic application of a rubric, driven by AI, ensures fairer and more equitable grading practices across large cohorts, reducing the disparities that can arise from human markers. This consistency enhances the integrity of the assessment process.
- FIPSE alignment: The substantial time savings translate into a greater capacity for instructors to focus on high-value interactions, such as creating more engaging course materials or providing personalized, higher-level coaching. This directly supports the grant's aim to improve classroom and school operational efficiency and, ultimately, educational outcomes.
5: Curriculum and content generation for educators - QuadC
Tools dedicated to AI-powered curriculum, content, and report generation are essential for helping university faculty transition to an AI-enhanced model and reduce workload.
A platform like QuadC offers an AI-copilot designed specifically for higher education faculty and advisors. This tool integrates with institutional data to help educators quickly draft course syllabi, generate practice questions, and create lesson outlines based on verified, institution-specific materials.
It significantly reduces the hours professors spend on administrative and preparatory tasks.
- The impact data: The primary impact is on faculty workload reduction and operational efficiency. By automating the creation of high-stakes documents like syllabi and reports, and by integrating with institutional data for accurate insights, these tools can save instructors significant time. Beyond content generation, AI-copilot features in institutional platforms enable automated reporting and analytics, which simplifies the process of compiling data for internal reviews and accreditation.
- FIPSE alignment: The use of AI to streamline administrative tasks is a key component of the grant's goal to improve classroom and school operational efficiency. By freeing up instructor time, this tool allows faculty to reinvest hours into high-value interactions, such as student mentoring, professional development, and refining pedagogical strategies, thereby supporting the grant’s aim to make instruction more effective and efficient.
6: Institutional strategy and program validation - Lightcast Alumni Pathways
The U.S. government is increasingly demanding that higher education demonstrate a clear return on investment and alignment with workforce needs. Lightcast Alumni Pathways addresses this by providing labor market intelligence (LMI).
It leverages AI and a database of over 130 million career profiles, matched with institutional records (often via the National Student Clearinghouse), to give colleges clear data on where their graduates work, their job titles, estimated wages, and the skills employers demand.
- The impact data: Institutions use this data to perform program review (validating successful programs and identifying underperforming ones) and strategic planning. For grant applications and fundraising, the data provides hard evidence of program impact, proving that the institution helps alumni secure careers. Universities also use the platform to generate student-facing tools that help current students set realistic career goals based on the real-world outcomes of their own graduates.
- FIPSE alignment: This tool is crucial for the AI priority's success because it validates the program's outcomes. It supports the grant's focus on workforce alignment and serves the function of improving data collection and capacity-building necessary for long-term strategic planning. By identifying skills gaps, institutions can directly adjust curriculum funded by the grant.
7: Experience management and engagement data - Qualtrics
Implementing new AI tools requires real-time data to measure effectiveness and address student pain points, a core component of continuous improvement required by federal grants.
Qualtrics is an Experience Management (XM) platform that uses AI-powered analytics to transform feedback into actionable insights. It enables institutions to listen to and analyze feedback from students, faculty, and staff across multiple touchpoints (surveys, course evaluations, and more).
- The impact data: Institutions using Qualtrics can drastically improve data collection and analysis. Some have reported a 90x increase in survey responses and 4,000 annual staff hours saved through automated reporting. By deploying targeted "pulse" surveys, institutions can identify friction points, such as mental health resource awareness or feelings of belonging, and take swift, proactive action. The data helps leaders understand attrition drivers and streamline course evaluation processes.
- FIPSE alignment: This solution is vital for the FIPSE grant's strict evaluation requirements. It allows grantees to set up measurable performance targets and continuously monitor student perception of new AI tools, accessibility, and overall course experience. By using data-driven insights to improve service, Qualtrics directly supports the grant's goal of enhancing student success and retention.
