Tips for Finding Financial Aid for Your Abroad Program
A note from Greenheart Travel: Noah Torres is a Greenheart Travel alum and Greenheart’s summer 2021 intern.
By Noah Torres
Teens
When looking for financial aid opportunities to study abroad, it is best to start as local as possible to both minimize competition and to find the scholarships/grants best tailored to your
needs and academic/personal situation. You may need to broaden your scope as you search, moving from school to state to federal, keeping private organizations in mind as well. Below is a
roadmap to help you with the process; you don’t need to strictly follow this if you have your own leads, though refer to it if you need guidance.
Start by checking what types of aid your school can offer. If they do offer any aid, it will often be from $50-$500, though it is worth checking. You should go to your academic counselor
if you have one, and ask them if your school has any available funds or programs that you can apply for to help you study abroad. You should also ask the counselor if they know of any school
district funds that you can pursue. Specify the program type, just in case it is important whether or not you are pursuing credit from the said program.
From school district, start searching for State-sponsored scholarship programs. We recommend searching “(Your state) Scholarships ‘Study Abroad’”. You’ll want to look for
something from the state government or department of education, but pro tip: you’ll likely see a lot of sites with information about financial aid for college-specific study abroad programs
in your state. This is worth checking out as they will often list sites where anyone can apply for scholarships, regardless of whether or not you attend the university, but you may need to be a university student, so be mindful.
The last source of public funding you’ll want to search is at the federal level. At the federal level, you will likely only find government-sponsored programs, as the only aid available
directly from the federal government is for universities. The United States Department of State and Department of Education share a page intended solely for K-12 scholarship information,
found here. Check this site for updates, but as of the time this blog is being written, there is no available aid applicable to Greenheart’s programs.
Whether you are checking them before or after public financial aid options, private financial aid is plentiful and most likely to be best for you. Every year there are new scholarship
and grant options, and every year others end. Below is some guidance on how to search for privately funded scholarships and grants that you can use to study abroad, followed by the links
to some of our favorite and more constant private funding options. When searching for financial aid, it is important to specify your grade level with either “K-12” or “high school” in the search
bar, to ensure you qualify. You also want to add “study abroad” or “high school abroad” to specify the program type. Lastly, write in “financial aid”, “grants”, or “scholarships”. Your search should then look something like this:
“High school study abroad financial aid”
You may want to take the time to substitute for different phrases or words within the search to generate different results. Another pro tip: Use quotation marks around the most important
words within your search so that the results you generate always include the words you put the quotation marks around. For example, putting the marks around “high school” will
ensure that the generated results include the words “high school” on their site. As you research different funding options, always be mindful of the eligibility requirements; some scholarships or grants may require you to belong to a particular identity group, while others may require that you study a specific language, and so on. Lastly, here are some of the financial aid options we recommend, as promised. Below are three credible sites that you can use to generate a list of scholarships and grants based on a variety of identifiers; ethnicity, age, income, planned
field of study, and more. Many scholarships and grants do not require an essay to apply for.
If you find no financial aid options that work for you, don’t stop! There are funding opportunities available, it may just require that you broaden your search. For example, you can remove any
indications of “study abroad” from your search, and instead look for organizations that grant aid to high schoolers with no preset purpose, but rather on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, you
can always consider starting a donation campaign like GoFundMe – study abroad and culture exchange are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that can be infinitely valuable, and there are many people that would love to help you experience that.
Adults
When looking for financial aid opportunities to study abroad, it is best to start as local as possible to both minimize competition and to find the scholarships/grants best tailored to your
needs and academic/personal situation. You may need to broaden your scope as you search, moving from state to federal, keeping private organizations in mind as well. Below is a roadmap
to help you with the process; you don’t need to strictly follow this if you have your own leads, though refer to it if you need guidance. If you are not a university student, skip to the paragraph
about privately funded aid options. Start by checking what types of aid your University can offer if you are a university student. Check to make sure that any aid they do offer can be used for programs outside of the university. You should go to your academic advisor if you have one, and ask them if your school has any available funds or programs that you can apply for to help you study abroad. Specify the program type, just in case it is important whether or not you are pursuing credit from the said program.
Next, search for state-sponsored scholarship programs. We recommend searching “(Your state) Scholarships ‘Study Abroad’”. You’ll want to look for something from the state government or department of education, but pro tip: you’ll likely see a lot of sites with information about financial aid for college-specific study abroad programs in your state. This is worth checking out as they will often list sites where anyone can apply for scholarships, regardless of whether or not you attend the university, but you may need to be a university student, so be mindful.
The last source of public funding you’ll want to search is at the federal level. At the federal level, you will likely only find government-sponsored programs, as the only aid available directly from the federal government is for universities. The United States Department of State and Department of Education share a page intended with scholarship information intended for
university students, found here. Check this site for updates, but as of the time this blog is being written, there is no available aid applicable to Greenheart’s programs. Whether you are checking them before or after public financial aid options, private financial aid is plentiful and most likely to be best for you. Every year there are new scholarship and grant options, and every year others end. Below is some guidance on how to search for privately funded scholarships and grants that you can use to study abroad, followed by the links to some of our favorite and more constant private funding options. When searching for financial aid, you want to search “study abroad” or “volunteer abroad” or “culture exchange” to orient the search. Then, write in “financial aid”, “grants”, or “scholarships”. Your search should then look something like this:
“Volunteer abroad grants”
You may want to take the time to substitute for different phrases or words within the search to generate different results. Another pro tip: Use quotation marks around the most important
words within your search so that the results you generate always include the words you put the quotation marks around. For example, putting the marks around “volunteer” will ensure that the generated results include the word “volunteer” on their site. As you research different funding options, always be mindful of the eligibility requirements; some scholarships or grants may require you to belong to a particular identity group, while others may require that you study a specific language, and so on. Lastly, here are some of the financial aid options we recommend, as promised.
If you find no financial aid options that work for you, don’t stop! There are funding opportunities available, it may just require that you broaden your search. For example, you can remove any
indications of “study abroad” from your search, and instead look for organizations that grant aid to scholars with no preset purpose, but rather on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, you can
always consider starting a donation campaign like GoFundMe – study abroad and culture exchange are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that can be infinitely valuable, and there are many people that would love to help you experience that.