Rotary Clubs a Great Source of Scholarships / Georgia Student Rotary Program

Rotary clubs around the world are a great source of scholarships for international study, and for any student trying to study abroad, Rotary Clubs should be top on the list to research any relevant scholarships. For instance, Rotary Clubs in the State of Georgia (USA) have sponsored the Georgia Rotary Student Program since 1946.

The GRSP brings in 80 international students per year for one full academic year, and pays their tuition, book allowance, meal allowance and on-campus room, at a college or university in the State of Georgia, USA. To be eligible, you must be between 18 and 25 and be an undergraduate student in your home country, and have never studied in the USA. In addition, you must be recommended by your home Rotary Club. Visit the Georgia Rotary Student Program website to learn more about their international scholarships.

Also, you can read a good story about Benjamin Ikaal from Kenya, who is a Rotary scholarship recipient studying at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia.

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Chinese Students Recruited by US Universities – Online Fair March 12, 2011

Students from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are in very high demand at US colleges and universities, leading Hobsons to host a virtual student fair specifically for these students.  If you are from one of these countries, register now for the Greater China Virtual Student Fair to be held March 12, 2011.  At the fair, you will be able to video conference or chat live with admissions representatives from over 60 schools; download school information; and learn about the admissions process from schools you may be interested in.  Best of all, its free, and you can do all of this from home, or from anywhere that you have an internet connection.

Register today, and put March 12 on your calendar – all attendees are entered to win $5,000 in prizes!

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Ramapo College of New Jersey Offers Full Scholarships to International Students

Ramapo College of New Jersey is a public, liberal arts college, founded in 1969 and rated by Kiplingers in 2010 as one of the “100 Best Values in Public Colleges.”  With 5,660 students, including several hundred international students, Ramapo offers degrees in the arts, business, the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences, as well as in professional studies programs such as nursing, social work and Teacher Education.

Scholarships available to international students include the Presidential Scholarship and the Provost Scholarship:

Presidential Scholarship (Full tuition waiver for four years): To be considered for the Presidential Scholarship, an international student must be in the top 10 percent of their high school class with SAT scores of at least 1300 in Critical Reading and Mathematics.    For more information, visit:  http://www.InternationalScholarships.com/Ramapo Presidential

Provost Scholarship ($10,000 per year for four years):  To be considered for the Provost Scholarship, an international student must be in the top 10 percent of their high school class with SAT scores of at least 1230 in Critical Reading and Mathematics.  For more information, visit:  http://www.InternationalScholarships.com/Ramapo Provost

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Indonesian Students Recruited by US Universities – March 5th Student Fair

Participate in (free) virtual fair to win $5,000 in prizes!  Student fair March 5th – enroll today.

Hobsons is taking student recruitment to the next level, as they roll out their virtual student fairs.  With the Hobsons virtual fairs, students can log into the virtual fair from their home or anywhere they have an internet connection.  Once logged in, they can talk directly with admissions representatives from dozens of US colleges, they can download information on the colleges they are interested in, they can view videos, take a campus tour and talk with other students – basically all of the things, and more, that you can do at a live student fair.

In addition, every student that registers and attends the fair that day can win prizes!  Hobsons will award $5,000 in prizes to students that attend the fair that day.

The March 5th fair is open to students from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

Register today – its free!

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International Student Loans Available

Student loans are available for international students studying at approved schools in the United States.  There are multiple loan programs available – today we will highlight the main two. International students are not eligible for US federal loans, for which you need to be a US citizen or permanent resident. However, the following two private loan programs are an excellent resource for non-US citizens:

InternationalStudentLoan.com – International Student Loan is the main online resource for school loans for international students, and has been for years. Currently, International Student Loan offers loans up to the total cost of education, as determined by your school, minus any other aid received. These loans are school certified (as all student loans are now), meaning your school financial aid office must certify the final amount of the loan to ensure that you are not borrowing more than you need. And the kicker – the school determines how much you need, based on their total cost of education minus any other aid you receive.  The approved school list is quite long, meaning most US schools are approved for loans. With this loan program, interest payments are required while you are in school, with full repayment beginning 6 months after separation from school.

http://www.InternationalStudentLoan.com

InternationalStudent.com -  InternationalStudent.com is the primary portal site for international education, and on its loan page it features a loan comparison tool with multiple lenders.  The school list is even longer, and you can find loans on the comparison tool that do not require any interest repayment while in school.

http://www.internationalstudent.com/loans/

Check them both to figure out which is the best financing option for you.

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Economy Tough on International Students

A recent article in The Daily 49er, the online newspaper for Cal State Long Beach, explores how the poor economy impacts international students, amid drastic cuts in California public education, a weak job market and rising tuition costs. Cal State Long Beach attracts students from around the world. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The down economy, cuts to the university’s budget and fee increases have affected students on many levels. Job-seeking international students have not been immune.

Last summer, the state reduced the 2009-2010 California State University budget by $571 million. Cal State Long Beach’s share of the cut was $44 million. Faculty and staff
furloughs were implemented, about 1,000 classes were cancelled, and tuition jumped by 30 percent from the 2008-2009 price. Nonresident student fees also increased.

“When you have an economic situation where money is really tight, you’re going to see a reduction in opportunities for everyone,” Inemesit Williams, study abroad adviser for the
Center for International Education (CIE), said. “On top of that, when at the same time you have in increase in fees, students are going to scramble to find ways to cover these new
costs.”

Last fall, there were 1,236 international students on campus. That is about 3.5 percent of the nearly 35,000-student population. They come from more than 40 countries from Australia, to Brazil and Zambia, with more than half from East or Southeast Asia. International students have either an F-1 student visa or a J-1 Exchange Visitor visa.  Under U.S. law, these visas allow them to work on campus, or off campus in a field related to their studies for a set time during school and after graduation.

Those who aspire to work for several years need a company to sponsor their application for an H-1B Temporary Worker visa. As the U.S. Department of Labor defines it: “The H-1B
program allows an employer to temporarily employ a foreign worker in the U.S. on a nonimmigrant basis in a specialty occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability.”

The spike in unemployment over the past year and a half in Southern California has  increased the stakes for international students who want to land a long-term job. The
seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Los Angeles County was 12.4 percent in March, up from 7.9 percent in August 2008.

The Career Development Center (CDC) on campus has hosted workshops targeting international students. These include seminars on finding an internship and writing an American-style résumé. CDC Counselor Wayne Tokunaga stressed the importance of doing all one can to be marketable.

“If your experience is the exact same as a U.S. citizen’s, they don’t have to sponsor a U.S. citizen for H1B,” Tokunaga said. “They’ll just go with a U.S. citizen because it’s
easier.”

To read the rest of the article, click here.

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Sharing the American Dream

This story from the online Daily O’Collegian, the Oklahoma State University newspaper, does a nice job of touching on most funding options open to international students in the US, and some of the hurdles they face.

If $40,000 does not come into Khanh Lu’s bursar account soon to pay for her OSU tuition, her dream of becoming an aerospace engineer will soon end. Lu, like many of the 16,000 international students at OSU, came to the United States expecting the American dream that she had seen on television back home in Vietnam. But if her family does not have the money to show they can pay her next year at OSU when she needs to enroll, she may have to go home a little sooner than she expected.

“It is difficult for me to concentrate on my studies sometimes because I worry about the financial burden I am putting on my family,” Lu, an aerospace engineering junior, said.

Click to read the rest of the story in the Daily O’Collegian.

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US News and World Report Releases Annual Ranking of US Colleges and Universities

Each year, US News and World Report ranks thousands of US colleges and universities based on a number of factors, school input and research. Although many critics continue to attack rankings in general and the US News approach in particular, there is no doubt that it is the most influential of all college rankings. (See our previous blog posts discussing problems with college rankings and an alternate approach to college ranking.)

Today, US News released their new rankings. Harvard and Stanford tied for number one overall among US business schools, while Thunderbird Global School of Management took top honors in the International speicalty among US business schools. MIT was tops for engineering graduate schools; Yale for law school; Harvard for medical school – research, and the University of Washington (Seattle) for medical school – primary care.

For national undergraduate university rankings, Harvard and Princeton tied for top honors.

Many of the top names will be familiar to international students; however, there are many other categories of rankings that showcase excellent schools that may not be so well known around the world. For instance, Bowdoin College and Pomona College are tied for 6th in the Liberal Arts category – excellent, well-respected schools in the US, but not as well known internationally; and St. Mary’s College of Maryland and New College of Florida are ranked 4th and 5th among public liberal arts schools.

To see all of the rankings and data, visit www.USNews.com/rankings.

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Sources of Funds for International Students in the US

Each year, the Institute of International Education publishes the Open Doors Report, packed full of information about international students in the US, US students abroad and trends in international education.

One of the tables I check out each year is the Primary Source of Funds table. This shows the primary source of education funding for international students in the US, and it really has not changed much over the past five years. The online table is great, and shows that most international students at US colleges and universities still must rely on their own funds to pay for their education — like family funds, loans and savings.

But the printed report is even better, as it breaks the data down by academic level. IIE just released the full printed 2009 Open Doors Report, and the data shows that the overwhelming majority (81.9%) of international undergraduates in the US are self-funded, while less than half (48.8%) of international graduate students cite personal and family funds as their primary source of funding.

The next set of numbers shows how those graduate students are funding their education – with help from their school. 43.3% of international graduates receive their primary funding from their US College or University, while the number is only 9.1% for undergraduates.

Here’s the full data table from the 2009 Open Doors Report showing the primary source of funds for international undergraduate and graduate students in the US:

Graduate students are much more likely to receive financial assistance from their school, often in the form of assistantships, research grants, etc., whereas very few undergraduates receive any form of aid from their school. This information is quite helpful as you set expectations about how to pay for an international education. There are scholarships for undergraduates, but far fewer than the financing opportunities available to graduate students.

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