[ChrisH]

The purpose of most NASA grants is to help teams get started. Not to fund the whole program forever. NASA expects that teams will become self supporting in two years. That is why they have the "rookie" and smaller "sophmore" grants. While a rookie grant will get you to one regional and help operate for one season, the sophmore grant is deliberately too small for this. It forces you to begin fundraising on your own.

So it is typical for a team to get less money from NASA in subsequent years than in their rookie year. In fact, you will probably get nothing next year. While students are sometimes left out of these details, especially in the first year, this weaning is made quite clear during the grant process.

There are exceptions. Sometimes a NASA center will decide to sponsor a local team, either for a season or for an event (like the Championship). For example, most years NASA-JPL will sponsor a local team to represent them at the Championship. But this is not a given and even when they do so, there is competition for the sponsorship. But in general, these teams are not fully dependent on NASA. These are teams that would still have a season without NASA money, it would just be shorter, thats all.

The bottom line:
Be grateful for NASA's assistance in getting started, they have done what they said they would. Now go out and develop other sponsors.