Licensure Pathway Support Program · Track 2
Licensure Milestone Award
You passed the exam and you paid for it yourself. This award sends the fee back.
- Award amount
- 100% of your feeNo cap. The amount on your receipt
- Who can apply
- Anyone who passedNo NAAAEA membership needed
- Limit
- One per personPer program year
- Application window
- RollingThrough July 1, 2027, or until funds are used
What this award does
The fee should not be the reason you waited
An exam fee arrives at the worst possible time: early in a career, often while paying down student loans, and frequently at a firm that will not cover it. That cost pushes people to postpone an exam by a year, and sometimes indefinitely.
The Licensure Milestone Award removes it retroactively. Pass the exam, show us the receipt and the pass notice, confirm no employer paid for it, and NAAAEA reimburses the fee in full.
It is framed as an award rather than a subsidy for a reason. You do not receive it for attempting the exam. You receive it for passing.
Open to all applicants
There is no NAAAEA membership requirement and no background requirement for this award. If you passed a covered exam within the program window and paid the fee yourself, you may apply, whether or not you have ever heard of us before today. Membership is welcome but it is not a condition, and it confers no advantage in review.
Eligibility
The seven conditions
All seven must be true. Six of them you either satisfy or you do not. The third is the one people ask about most, and it is explained in detail below.
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You passed the exam
You hold an official NCEES result showing a pass on the FE, FS, PE, PS or SE. A pending result is not enough, so apply once you have the notice in hand. A failed attempt is not reimbursable, though a later passed attempt is.
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The exam falls inside the program window
Your result must be dated on or after August 1, 2026, when the program opened. Exams passed before that date fall outside the program and cannot be reimbursed, however unfair that timing feels.
You must then apply within 120 days of the date on your result notice, and in all cases by July 1, 2027.
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You paid the fee yourself, and no employer is covering it
The fee must have come out of your own pocket and must not be reimbursed by anyone else, meaning not your employer, not a university, and not another scholarship, grant or professional body. This is the core condition of the award. It exists for candidates whose fee nobody else will pay.
How to document this is set out in the next section. It is more straightforward than it sounds, and you do not need to ask your employer for a favour.
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You are pursuing licensure in a U.S. jurisdiction
The exam must be a step toward professional licensure with a U.S. state or territorial licensing board. You do not need to be licensed yet, since almost no FE candidate is. You only need to be on that path.
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You have not already received this award
One Licensure Milestone Award per person for the 2026–2027 program year. If you passed the FE in September and the PE in April, choose one, and choose the more expensive one. Passing two exams in one year is worth telling us about on the form regardless. It is exactly the story this program was built to tell.
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You can produce the documentation
An NCEES result notice and an NCEES receipt or payment record showing the amount you paid. The full list is below. Both are downloadable from your NCEES account, so this is a five-minute task, not a records hunt.
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You agree to a short statement for program reporting
Recipients agree to provide two to three sentences about what passing meant for them, and, if you are willing, a photograph. Your name and photo are used publicly only where you tick that permission on the form. You can share a testimonial anonymously and still receive the award.
The employer condition
Proving nobody else is paying
Every applicant signs an attestation that no employer or third party has reimbursed the fee or will reimburse it. On top of that signed statement, you supply one supporting item, and there are three ways to do it, so that nobody has to go to their manager cap in hand.
If your employer reimburses you later
Circumstances change. A policy is revised, a promotion comes with a licensure allowance, or a deferred reimbursement finally clears. If your fee is reimbursed by an employer or third party after you receive this award, you agree to notify NAAAEA within 30 days and return the award so it can go to another candidate. Signing the attestation in good faith and then reporting a change is entirely fine. Not reporting it is not, and makes you ineligible for future NAAAEA awards.
Documents
What to have ready
Everything on this list except the sponsorship item comes straight out of your NCEES account. Sign in, download two PDFs, and you are done.
Uploads accept PDF, JPG or PNG at up to 5 MB each, the same limits as the rest of our forms. If a file is too large, a phone photo of the printed page is perfectly acceptable.
Upload checklist
Four items, one of which is optional
- NCEES exam result noticeShowing your name, the exam, the administration date and a pass result.
- NCEES receipt or payment recordShowing the amount you paid and the date. This figure determines your reimbursement.
- Employer non-sponsorship evidenceA policy excerpt or an HR or supervisor confirmation. Not required if you have no employer, and the form lets you say so.
- Photo identificationDriver’s licence, state ID or passport, to confirm the name on the result is yours. Redact anything you would rather not share beyond your name and photograph.
- A headshot, optionalOnly if you are happy to be featured in program reporting or on our newsletter.
Process
From submission to payment
Submit
Complete the form below with your documents attached. You get an emailed confirmation with a copy of your answers and a reference number.
Verification
We check the result, the receipt amount and the sponsorship evidence. If something is missing we email you, and your application is held, not rejected, and keeps its place in the queue.
Committee review
The 15th of each month. Complete applications received by the 10th are reviewed that month, and you get a decision by email within ten business days.
Payment
Within 30 days of approval, by check to your mailing address or ACH to your account, for the full amount shown on your receipt.
Funds are limited and awarded first qualified
This track draws on a limited pool. Complete applications are approved in the order they become complete, and the track closes for the year once the funds are used. This page will say so plainly when that happens. If you have passed, apply now rather than at the 120-day mark.
Payment and tax
Awards are paid as reimbursements of a documented expense against the receipt you submit. NAAAEA may request a completed IRS Form W-9 before releasing payment. NAAAEA does not provide tax advice, and recipients are responsible for any tax treatment of the payment and should consult their own advisor. Payment is made only to the applicant, never to an employer, a firm or a third party.
Application
Licensure Milestone Award application
Allow about fifteen minutes. Have your NCEES result notice and receipt downloaded before you start, because the form does not save partway through.
Submitting an application does not create an award. Awards are made in writing by National AAAEA and are subject to available funds. Documents you upload are used to verify eligibility and administer payment, are retained for as long as the program’s records require, and are not shared with any third party. We report on the program as a whole, meaning the number of awards, exam types and amounts, without personal identifiers.
Questions
Frequently asked
I passed my PE in March 2026. Can I apply?
Unfortunately not. The program covers exams passed on or after August 1, 2026, and we cannot move that date. It is a genuinely frustrating cutoff. Do sign up for the newsletter, because if the program continues into a second year, the window moves with it.
I failed the PE twice before passing on the third attempt. What do I get back?
The fee for the attempt you passed. Upload the receipt for that sitting. We know the first two hurt, and we would reimburse them if the funds stretched that far, but covering the passed sitting for three people does more good than covering three sittings for one person.
I took the two SE components a year apart. How does that work?
Apply once you have passed both and hold the result confirming SE completion. Upload both receipts, and the award covers the total you paid, up to the full SE fee. If only one component falls inside the program window, we reimburse the amount you paid for the sitting or sittings inside the window.
My employer paid the fee but I paid them back. Am I eligible?
Yes, because the fee was ultimately yours. Explain the arrangement in the notes field and upload whatever shows the repayment, such as a payroll deduction line or a transfer record, along with your attestation. The test is who is out of pocket at the end, not whose card was used on the day.
My employer says they will reimburse me once I get my license, which could be two years away.
Then the fee is not currently reimbursed and you may apply, but flag the arrangement on the form. If the employer reimbursement does eventually arrive, you agree to notify us within 30 days and return the award so it can be re-awarded. We would far rather you apply and disclose than not apply at all.
Do I have to join NAAAEA?
No. There is no membership requirement, no fee to apply, and membership gives no advantage in review. If the program is useful to you, we would be glad to have you in a local chapter, but that is an invitation, not a condition.
Do I have to be Arab American?
No. This award is open to all applicants. NAAAEA is an Arab American professional association and this program grew out of the barriers our members described, but the aim is to advance licensure broadly, and we are not narrowing it.
Can I apply for the FE now and the PE later in the same year?
Only one award per person per program year, so you would be choosing between them. If you expect to sit the PE inside the year, it is usually worth waiting and claiming the larger fee, but weigh that against the funds running out. If the timing is tight, apply for the exam you have already passed.
What if the funds run out before my application is reviewed?
We tell you directly rather than leaving you to guess, and this page is updated to show the track as closed. Complete applications stay in the queue in the order they became complete, and if an approved award is declined or returned, or further funds become available, we work down that queue.
How long does the whole thing take?
Roughly six to eight weeks from a complete submission to money in your account: up to a month to reach the next review on the 15th, ten business days for the decision, and up to 30 days for payment. Submitting before the 10th of a month is the single biggest thing you can do to speed it up.
Who do I contact if something goes wrong?
Email comm@aaaea.org with your reference number, or call +1 312 536 0527. A real person reads it.
The Licensure Milestone Award is Track 2 of the National AAAEA Licensure Pathway Support Program, supported in part by the NCEES Foundation. National AAAEA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. FE, FS, PE, PS and SE are examinations administered by NCEES. NAAAEA is not affiliated with NCEES, and NCEES does not review individual applications or select recipients. Award amounts, criteria and availability are subject to available funds and may be revised. The version published on this page governs. Questions: comm@aaaea.org.