National Science & Mathematics Access to Retain Talents Grant or SMART Grant is a financial aid program run by the US Federal Department of Education to provide the necessary financing to those students who are unable to pay for the costly education. This grant is only provided to those students who have got excellent academic background in the steam of science, mathematics and technology. The necessary financial aid is provided to the students who have enrolled half time into the course and are either in 3rd or 4th year of their study. It is to be noted that the grant is only designed for the undergraduate course.

Some of the salient features of National Smart Grant are:

• an amount of $4,000 is made available to the students
• one must receive Pell Grant to get this aid
• money is made available to science stream students
• one must apply for this grant via FAFSA form

In order to avail National Smart Grant, one must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 through out the 1st and 2nd year of the curriculum. In the event if you haven't got Pell Grant, then you are not eligible for this very grant program. Since the maximum amount that a student can receive is only $4,000, but if there are a large number of eligible students for a given year, then the amount would certainly come down to a certain extent.

To get National Smart Grant, one needs to adhere to the following eligibility criteria mentioned under the following headings:

• one must be a permanent citizen of USA
• eligible non permanent US residents can also apply
• you should have enrolled half time in course
• the course should be a full time one
• the college should be certified by Dept. of Education
• grade point average between 3.0 and 4.0 is required
• one must be pursuing majors in science field

So now you can take on any challenging science course in your undergraduate study and can easily make the tuition fees affordable with the help of National Smart Grant. Though the amount you get is not very high but it is something better than having no financing at all. And the best thing about this financial aid program is that it is a free money. Which means that you need not have to pay it back like the way you are supposed to repay your student loans.