Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program
Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Performance Report
Student Service’s Response to Comment(s) Received from the
60-Day Comment Period
Background
Through a grant competition, funds are awarded to institutions of higher education to prepare eligible participants for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. Participants are from disadvantaged backgrounds and have demonstrated strong academic potential. Institutions work closely with participants as they complete their undergraduate requirements. Institutions encourage participants to enroll in graduate programs and then track their progress through to the successful completion of advanced degrees. The goal is to increase the attainment of Ph.D. degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society.
Summary
The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received one comment regarding the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program renewal of the annual performance report, during the 60-day public comment period.
Below is a summary of the comment and the Department’s response to the comment, including whether subsequent changes have been made to the data collection process for the McNair Program.
Competitive Preference Priorities:
Comment: The commenter is concerned about the recommendation to add a field to address Competitive Preference Priorities (CPPs). The commenter is a grantee who is concerned that they would be disadvantaged since they received an off-cycle award and are still operating under previous CPPs.
Response: The Department notes that the collection of this information is for reporting purposes only and, therefore, does not have any impact on a grantee’s future funding status. In addition, only grantees who completed an application using the Competitive Preference Priorities from the Fiscal Year 2022 competition would be required to respond to the new questions, so a grantee who did not apply under these CPPs would not have any requirement to report on them.
Change: None.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Wright, Lavelle |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2023-10-04 |