College Of Holy Cross

College of the Holy Cross, a private non-profit liberal arts institution based in Worcester, Massachusetts, acts as a federal grant recipient and prime contractor delivering undergraduate education services to the Department of the Navy and conducting federally funded research across the biological sciences, computer science, and humanities. The college competes in full-and-open competition with no set-aside designations across its federal footprint.

The college's federal work splits between two distinct streams. The dominant revenue stream is tuition and allowable fees for Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen delivered under a basic ordering agreement (BOA N0018919GZ015) with the Bureau of Naval Personnel; ten task orders under this vehicle carry $10.3 million in combined potential value and represent the highest-value customer concentration. Recent representative Navy contracts include a $1.308 million firm fixed-price delivery order for Spring 2026 NROTC midshipmen tuition and fees (April 11, 2026), a $2.628 million ratification order for Fall 2025 semester tuition, and a $1.036 million delivery order for Fall 2024 semester tuition. The college also holds a single-award IDIQ (contract DAKF4080H0054) with the Department of the Air Force under which it has issued six task orders, though the source does not describe the scope of Air Force work.

The second and growing stream is federally funded research conducted by faculty and students. The National Science Foundation has awarded the college 23 grants across biological sciences, computer science education, and learning research, including a $722 thousand Project Grant (CFDA 47.074, September 2025–August 2028) for investigating molecular interactions of orphan genes in fruit-fly reproduction, an $800 thousand award (December 2024–November 2027) examining energetic tradeoffs in coral-algal symbiosis, and a grant for automated feedback tools in undergraduate computing theory education (July 2025–June 2028). The college also holds grants from the National Institutes of Health (bacterial signaling systems research, September 2022–August 2026), the National Endowment for the Humanities (including a $140 thousand curriculum-development award for an Interdisciplinary Minor in Ethics, Society, and the Institution of Business, July 2023–June 2025, and a $143 thousand faculty summer institute on ritual arts in Hinduism and Buddhism), and NASA (a $36 thousand research award on Europa's near-surface melt dynamics, completed July 2022). All grants emphasize integration of undergraduate student research participation and workforce development at a primarily undergraduate institution.

Customer concentration sits with the Department of the Navy (Bureau of Naval Personnel), which accounts for 11 awards valued at $10.2 million combined potential value, and the National Science Foundation with 23 awards. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 63% of recent awards. The college has worked with 28 distinct federal agencies over the source period. Activity has remained stable at five to six prime awards annually from 2022 through 2025, with only one award recorded through April 2026; three awards face ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months. The college holds minimal subcontract exposure, acting as a sub-recipient on two FEMA Covid-19 pandemic response grants flowing through the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and on one NIH grant flowing through the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation. Combined obligated dollars across the entire federal footprint ($48.1 million) substantially exceed combined potential value ($10.6 million), reflecting the college's long award history dating to 1980 and the distinction between contract ceiling values and actual invoiced research spend.