Study Abroad Financial Aid, Graduate Study Abroad

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Financial Aid Abroad

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Many students are shocked to learn that there are a variety of ways to fund graduate school abroad in addition to fellowships or aid from the foreign school.

Federal Aid
There are actually ways of taking federal aid money with you to graduate school in another country. The tricky part can be finding a school or program that will work with you to accomplish this. Many foreign schools do not have financial aid offices that help students in the way that they do in the United States. Therefore, since funding is set up to go through certain channels, it often becomes complicated when trying to move those funds in different ways.

There are actually more than 400 international institutions that already qualify for the Stafford Loan Program. Interested students should investigate this list to see if the institution that interests them is on it. This process could also be reversed: If you have not already selected a school, it may be worthwhile looking at the list of approved schools to see if they could meet your educational goals and needs. Obviously, with 400 schools on the list, there are some choices, but at the same time, there are many institutions that may be the best fit for you but do not make the list.

Individual Loan Providers
There are a number of individual loan providers that will also work with students interested in studying abroad. However, if your school is one that does not make the approved list for federal loans, it may not make the list for these loan providers either. For more information you will have to contact different student loan providers to learn their policies on using loans for graduate school abroad.

There are a few programs designed for students seeking to complete their graduate education abroad that are designed to supplement or replace federal loans if they are insufficient or unavailable. Frequently, these programs will actually provide students with the opportunity to get loans to take to schools that are not on the government's approved list. However, most recommend using Stafford Loans as the primary source of funding where available.

Other Concerns
Different providers adopt different approaches to the difficulties of providing aid abroad. Some of them are willing to disburse funds directly to the borrower as long as the school is approved. Other providers are afraid students will decide an exotic, foreign vacation is superior to an education so they refuse to disburse funds to anyone but a financial aid office or other equivalent. If your school of choice refuses to provide a channel for funds disbursement, these providers may refuse to give you the loans even if you would otherwise qualify.

Loan providers also frequently require a co-signer who will not be going abroad and will remind the borrower that actually getting that education would be a much better idea than going on vacation. The requirement of a co-signer is often linked to the amount of the loan with smaller amounts not always requiring a co-signer while larger amounts frequently do.

Overall, there is a good possibility that if you want to go to graduate school in a foreign country, there is funding from some source available. Given that financial aid policies tend to vary widely from school to school, the most practical thing to do is start looking for schools and talking to your contact or the financial aid office or equivalent at those schools. These people will be able to provide the specific details of what they can do to help you. If you have selected a school you can also start investigating all the traditional channels for graduate school financial aid and figure out which ones would allow you to use the funds abroad. Once again this can vary widely so the only way to figure out what is available is to research the specifics.

Just keep in mind that all the legwork will be worthwhile when you are attending a graduate school abroad!

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