The federal Pell Grant eligibility criteria was primarily instituted to fall in line in accordance to the Pell Grant program which was designed to benefit students who exemplify an “exceptional” financial need thus cannot afford to get a higher education.

Understanding the Pell grant amount is important before you start planning on receiving any possible aid as a result of this federal award. The great thing for 2010-2011 school year is that has a significant increase and is currently in a margin set at an all time high.
Since Pell grant eligibility rely heavily on your ability to demonstrate exceptional financial need, it is therefore important to understand what that means exactly.

Financial Need = Cost of Attendance (CoA) – Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

The greater disparity of the cost for attending a particular institution and the amount of money your family needs to put towards your college education the higher the financial need. Cost of attendance is the standardized representation of an entire cost for college for a full academic year. EFC is an indicator of the amount of money your family is able to contribute towards the cost of a higher education.

According to Wikipedia, Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have earned their first bachelors degree or who are not enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating institutions.

There are still other requirements that you must take into consideration to establish your Federal Pell grant eligibility criteria, these are the Pell grant specific and general federal student aid criteria.