Community College District 502

Community College District 502, doing business as College of DuPage, a U.S. local government and public educational institution headquartered in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, serves federal agencies as a recipient of federal grants (91% of recent awards) and as a prime contractor on small-value service and facility-rental purchase orders, competing full-and-open with no set-aside designations. The college operates as a workforce development, STEM education, and civic engagement recipient across eighteen distinct federal agencies, with particular concentration in the Internal Revenue Service's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) grant program and in workforce-aligned certificate and degree programs funded by the Department of Education and Department of Labor.

College of DuPage's recent federal grant footprint emphasizes education and workforce development. The institution is the recipient of a $4.0 million Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) project grant (CFDA 84.116) from the Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education, awarded in January 2026 through December 2029, to develop employer-aligned short-term aviation and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) certificate programs using simulation and drone technology. A $650 thousand Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Education and Workforce Development grant (CFDA 10.310) from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, effective March 2026 through February 2029, funds the Facilitating Opportunities for Re-Entry and Workforce Advancement Through Agricultural Development (COD-FORWARD) project, delivering sustainable urban agriculture certificates to ninety-three under-resourced and incarcerated students in partnership with DuPage County Correctional Facility and Just of DuPage. The college received recurring VITA matching grants from the Internal Revenue Service (October 2025 through September 2026, and prior awards in 2024, 2023, and 2022) to extend tax-preparation services to underserved populations, including low-income individuals, persons with disabilities, English-language learners, Native Americans, rural residents, military families, and the elderly. The National Science Foundation funded a six-year S-STEM Track 2 project (January 2023 through December 2028) supporting scholarships and intrusive advising for a minimum of 120 part-time or full-time students pursuing associate degrees in chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, or physics; students participate in paid summer internships through partnerships with four-year institutions and national laboratories. The Department of Labor funded an apprenticeship program for particle accelerator technologies under the Particle Accelerator Capabilities Enhancement and Modernization Apprenticeship Program (PACEMAP) (September 2023 through August 2026). The Bureau of Justice Assistance funded a body-worn camera implementation program for the College of DuPage Police Department (October 2022 through September 2025). The college received Congressionally Directed Spending (Community Project Funding) in July 2022 for $500 thousand to support replacement of simulation equipment and radiological hardware for nursing, dental hygiene, radiology, and sonography programs. The US Election Assistance Commission funded an initiative to encourage college students to serve as nonpartisan poll workers (February 2024 through January 2026).

The Internal Revenue Service is the dominant customer by award count, accounting for twenty awards (37% of the college's prime and sub awards) with $146 thousand in combined potential value, anchored by recurring VITA grants supplemented by facility rental and training range access purchase orders. In the past five years, the college has maintained stable grant activity with four awards in 2022 and 2023, four in 2024, five in 2025, and two in 2026 to date. Only two awards face completion within the next twenty-four months, indicating minimal recompete cliff exposure. The college acts as a sub-recipient on five federal grant awards from state pass-through agencies, including sub-awards from the Illinois Community College Board (Adult Education funding), Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (APEX Accelerator technical assistance to businesses pursuing federal contracts), and Illinois Emergency Management Agency (FEMA COVID-19 support).

On the contract side, the college holds four small federal purchase orders from the Internal Revenue Service (totaling $56,550 across fiscal years 2022, 2023, and 2024 for annual firing range rental fees) and one $1,700 firm fixed-price purchase order from the Office of the Inspector General (March 2025 through March 2026) for firearms qualifications and control tactics training, delivered at its Glen Ellyn campus. These contracts carry no set-aside designations and represent incidental transactional revenue relative to the college's grant portfolio.