International Student Loan has re-launched its website, with a new loan matching system, improved navigation and an updated design. International students will now be matched to an appropriate loan product much more quickly, simplifying product selection and application.
Instead of requiring a student to navigate through the site to the appropriate loan product, now students can use the simple form to quickly find out if they are eligible to apply for a loan, and if so, what loan is appropriate. The new system will also allow International Student Loan to work more easily with multiple lenders, making sure that they can keep up with the rapidly changing market and deliver the best loan products to students.
The new site also has a cool new look – wider, with more images and a more current look. The content has been updated and added to, so students can get the information they need quickly.
For international students studying in the USA, and for US students studying overseas, the financing options are more limited than for domestic study. Through International Student Loan, students can apply for up to the total cost of education, minus any other aid received. A US co-signer is required for all international students and most US students.
Check out the new site: http://www.InternationalStudentLoan.com
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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.
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:
| Primary Source of Funds | % undergraduate | % graduate |
| Personal & Family | 81.9 | 48.8 |
| U.S. College or University | 9.1 | 43.3 |
| Home Government/University | 3.9 | 3.1 |
| U.S. Government | 0.3 | 0.8 |
| U.S. Private Sponsor | 1.4 | 0.9 |
| Foreign Private Sponsor | 2.1 | 1 |
| International Organization | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Current Employment | 0.2 | 1 |
| Other Sources | 1 | 0.8 |
| Total | 100 | 100 |
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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As we did last year, we would like to provide a quick update as we start 2010 for international students looking to finance an education in the US. We begin 2010 in a much more settled position that we did 2009, with loans available, but still with constraints to education financing as a fallout from the worldwide economic turmoil over the past two years.
Although many lenders have gone out of business or canceled their international student loans, and private loans in general have been cut back dramatically, International Student Loan has loans available to international students in the US. These loan programs require a co-signer with excellent credit, and require “school certification.” Visit International Student Loan and click the Apply Now button to begin your online application.
There are no longer any direct-to-consumer, non-school certified private student loans available to anyone. These DTC loans – ones that did not need to be certified by your school, and therefore could process very quickly and let you borrow more than the total amount that your school permits – were very popular with international and US students. But because of perceived and actual abuse, DTC student loans are gone and may not come back any time soon.
For international students, the basics of sound education financing become even more important. Those basics haven’t changed:
1. Be very realistic about your budgeting and financial needs, and choosing a college that is within your budget. Visit these two posts to see more on being realistic about your choice of college and setting an accurate school budget.
2. Consider a community college for the first two years of your education. Visit this post to learn how international students save money at community colleges.
3. Get as much in scholarships as you can. Start with your school, your government, and look online on sites like International Education Financial Aid.
4. If you need loans, check with International Student Loan and your school about the availability of a loan program for you.
Best of luck as we begin 2010. From an international education financing perspective, things are much better than last year, but we still have a long way to go to make an international education affordable to anyone with the initiative to pursue one!
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