student writing application on laptop in library

August

/ 2026

Where is the money for study abroad, really - and how much of it can I actually get?

Here’s your guide: the number you are actually solving for, whether your financial aid travels with you (the question almost nobody answers), and the four tiers of study abroad scholarships ranked by your honest odds - starting with the tier where the competition is weakest and ending with the famous ones everybody applies to.

Let’s talk about the money.

Start with the number you are actually solving for

Scholarship articles tend to hand you a list without ever telling you what you are trying to pay for. Students apply for a $2,000 award with no idea whether $2,000 solves the fiscal problem or barely dents it, which makes the whole process feel like guessing in the dark.

Do the subtraction first. On paper, now. Here’s your math:

Line one: what the study abroad program actually costs. Provider programs commonly run $15,000 to $22,000 for a semester with housing. Direct enrollment in much of Europe runs far less. An exchange usually costs you your home tuition and nothing more. (Our full breakdown lives in the study abroad programs guide.)

Line two: everything the quote leaves out. Airfare. Visa fees. Passport (which can take weeks, so start now). Health insurance. Immunizations. Local transit. A phone plan. Books. Monthly living costs that range from about $500 in some countries to nearly $3,000 in others.

Line three: what you already pay to be a student at home. This is the line students forget, and forgetting it makes the whole thing look far scarier than it is. If you are already paying tuition, housing, and food on your own campus, you are paying the difference, not the whole cost. (We walk through this arithmetic in how to budget for educational travel without financial stress, too.)

Line one plus line two, minus line three, minus your existing financial aid. That number is your gap. It is often much smaller than the sticker price suggested, and it is the only number that matters.

Tip: Write your gap on a sticky note and put it where you do homework. Every scholarship essay you write after that has a focused job, and jobs are easier to do than dreams.

Study abroad financial aid: does yours actually travel?

Here is the question the entire internet skips, and it is worth more to you than any single scholarship: most of your existing financial aid can usually go abroad with you. (Yes, really!)

The mechanism is a consortium agreement (some schools call it a written or contractual arrangement, and the governing regulation is 34 CFR 668.5). Your home school and the host program put the arrangement in writing, the program has to be approved for credit by your home institution, and one of the two schools handles the calculating and disbursing - usually yours. Pell has its own rule on top of this: under 34 CFR 690.11 you cannot draw Pell from two institutions at the same time. Your Pell Grant, your federal loans, and often your state grant travel along that path.

Three warnings, all of which have ended trips I watched:

Institutional aid is the one that may not travel with you. Your federal aid usually does. That generous merit scholarship your own university gave you? Its portability is entirely up to your university, and the answer varies WILDLY by school and sometimes by individual study abroad program. Ask in writing (and keep the email!).

Some schools exclude specific providers outright. A handful of universities will not process aid for certain third-party study abroad programs at all, which turns an otherwise perfect program into an impossible one. Better to learn that in September than in March, when you’ve made all your plans.

Paperwork has its own calendar. Consortium forms carry an application deadline months before departure, and the provider usually wants a deposit before your aid disburses. Ask your financial aid office two questions today: does my study abroad financial aid travel to this program, and when does the money actually arrive relative to when I have to pay?

The four tiers of study abroad scholarships, ranked by your actual odds

Now let’s focus on the funding itself. Most students start at the most famous awards and work down, which is exactly backward. Start where the award competition is slimmest.

Tier one: your own campus (best odds in the entire system)

The money closest to you is the money very few people chase.

Your study abroad office almost certainly administers its own awards. So does your academic department, your honors college, your alumni association, and frequently individual-named funds that exist because a graduate loved a country in 1974 and left money for students to go there. These funds are often under-applied to the point of embarrassment. I have seen awards go unclaimed for lack of a single qualified applicant. Not a one!

Go in person to the education abroad office and ask this exact question: “What money do you administer, what does my department administer, and what awards did not get claimed last year?” That last clause is the one that produces surprising answers. Watch the advisor’s face when you ask it; they have been waiting for someone to.

While you are there, ask whether your school participates in ISEP or another exchange network, because an exchange placement can cut your cost more than any scholarship will. And read our guide to deciding whether study abroad is right for you if you are still weighing it at all.

Tier two: your program provider

Providers give away a lot of money and advertise it badly (which is a whole other article). CIEE alone publishes a stack of named awards: a GAIN Travel Grant of up to $1,500 (note that this one is a credit with their travel partner, not cash), a GAIN Scholars Grant of up to $2,000 for Pell-eligible students, a Gilman Go Global Grant of up to $2,500, and merit awards up to $2,500 at the semester rate for health sciences, undergraduate research, marine ecology, and area studies. Their Scan Design Foundation internship covers program cost, airfare, AND a living stipend. All of it!

Read the rate tables closely, though, because the headline number is usually the semester figure - CIEE’s merit awards drop to $1,500 for a quarter and $750 for summer, and their summer STEM scholarship is $500. Good money, but not the number told on the poster.

Every major provider runs a comparable list. The pattern to know: provider awards usually have earlier deadlines than the national ones. CIEE’s are April 1 for summer and fall and October 15 for spring and January. Others work differently - IES Abroad, for instance, ties its scholarship deadline to your program application date rather than a fixed calendar day, so check each provider yourself rather than trusting a general rule.

Ask your provider directly what the average award is and what percentage of applicants receive something. A confident provider will tell you the truth - and help you get there.

Tier three: the national awards (the famous ones)

These are the big study abroad grants, and they deserve their reputation. They also have real deadlines you can miss right now.

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is the one to build your plan around. Up to $5,000, with nearly 3,000 scholarships awarded every single year. Read that number again, because it changes how you should feel about applying. You must be a U.S. citizen undergraduate receiving a Federal Pell Grant, on a credit-bearing study abroad program or career-oriented internship, in a country with an overall Travel Advisory of Level 1 or 2. Supplemental awards exist for critical-need languages and for STEM coursework. The Fall 2026 application deadline is October 1, 2026 (11:59pm Pacific), and the Spring cycle closes February 25, 2027.

Note: Both carry a second deadline a week later for your advisor’s certification - October 8 and March 4 - and that is the one that students forget. Tell your advisor in September, not the night before.

The Gilman-DAAD Germany Scholarship adds up to $5,000 for study in Germany, with 40 awards a year, and you apply through the regular Benjamin Gilman International Scholarship application. If Germany is on your list, this one is nearly free to enter (you are already writing the essays!).

The Boren Awards fund study in world regions considered critical to U.S. national security, in exchange for a federal service commitment afterward. Undergraduates can receive up to $25,000 for 25 to 52 weeks, $12,500 for 12 to 24 weeks, and $8,000 for 8 to 11 weeks for STEM majors. The scholarship deadline is January 27, 2027 (5pm Eastern), fellowships January 20. That one-year federal service requirement is a genuine obligation rather than fine print, so go in with your eyes open - and know that a great many Boren alumni consider it the best part of the whole thing. So many of my friends and colleagues have participated in this program; it is marvelous.

The Critical Language Scholarship is fully funded by the U.S. government: eight weeks of intensive summer language study in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, or Swahili, described as the equivalent of a full year of language study compressed into one summer (which sounds exhausting and is, and every alum I have met would do it again). For the 2026 cycle, roughly 315 students were selected from more than 4,500 applicants, so it is genuinely competitive - but it costs you nothing except the application. (Check the current language list before you plan around it; CLS has trimmed its roster in recent years.)

Freeman-ASIA gives need-based awards for study in East and Southeast Asia: up to $3,000 for summer, $5,000 for a semester or quarter, $7,000 for an academic year. You need a 2.8 GPA, U.S. citizenship or permanent residency, and a willingness to run a service project when you get home.

The Fund for Education Abroad runs 25+ named scholarships, including dedicated funds for community college students, LGBTQ+ students, first-generation students, and specific destinations. Eligibility is unusually broad: U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and DACA recipients, 18 or older, undergraduates, on programs of at least 14 days. You must not have studied abroad since finishing high school, and you need demonstrated financial need (a Student Aid Index under 20,000, Pell eligibility, or current student loans all qualify).

Tip: Apply for Gilman even if you think your odds are poor. Nearly 3,000 awards a year is a very different animal from a prestige fellowship, and study abroad advisors will tell you the same thing I will - the applicant pool is smaller than it should be.

Tier four: local and affinity money (the tier everybody forgets)

This is where the easy money hides, and almost no study abroad scholarships article mentions it.

Look at community foundations in your county. Rotary clubs, Kiwanis, Lions, Elks. Your parents’ employer and their union. Heritage and cultural societies tied to your family’s background or your destination. Professional associations in your major, which frequently have travel funds nobody uses. Your high school’s alumni fund. Local businesses. The garden club, honestly, if the garden club has a fund.

These awards are small, around $250, $500, or $1,000. They are also decided by a handful of local people reading a handful of applications (sometimes four applications! sometimes yours is the only one), which makes your odds extraordinary compared to a national competition. Six local awards of $500 helps you via $3,000, and that $3,000 closes a lot of gaps.

And something lovely happens at this tier: the people who fund these awards genuinely want to hear where you went when you come home. Write them a letter afterward. Not because you have to, but because it is the nicest part. For one I applied for and got, I wrote and offered to do a presentation WITH photos (who doesn’t want to share their experiences?). It was so well-attended and truly increased the impact of my study abroad experience in my community. The next year they gave four times the number of scholarships!

academic advisor and student with laptop
the best money is the closest money

Free study abroad programs: what “free” honestly means

People search for free study abroad programs constantly, and they deserve a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.

Fully free, in the sense of somebody else paying for everything, does exist. It looks like this:
•    The Critical Language Scholarship, which is fully funded, including travel
•    Boren Awards at the $25,000 level, which for many programs covers the whole cost
•    A few provider awards that explicitly cover 100% of fees and travel
•    Exchange programs, where you pay your home tuition and nothing extra, which for a student on strong aid can mean genuinely no additional cost

What “free” usually means in practice is ones you have stacked: your existing financial aid, plus a Gilman, plus a provider grant, plus two local awards, minus the money you were already spending to live at home. I have watched students assemble a fully funded semester out of five ordinary pieces. Nobody handed them a golden ticket (alas!). They filled out forms in October.

And a caution I want to make plainly, because the internet repeats it endlessly: “study free in Germany or Norway” is generally true for EU citizens and formal exchange students, not for a fee-paying American who enrolls directly. Wonderful, low-cost options exist there. Free is a different claim. Do your research.

The deadline calendar (this is the section to screenshot)

Deadlines are where good intentions fizzle out. Here’s the calendar year, roughly, for a U.S. undergraduate:

August and September. Do the gap math. Meet your study abroad advisor and your financial aid officer. Start the passport if you do not have one (this one is the foundation for everything else - go today to your local library if they offer it, the post office if your branch does it, or even online). Ask about campus and departmental awards. Start drafting essays now, while you still have time amidst your current classes to handle extra writing.

October. The heaviest month. Gilman’s fall cycle closes October 1. Many provider spring awards close mid-October. Campus deadlines are often here, too.

November through January. Critical Language Scholarship season. Boren closes in late January. FAFSA should be filed. Local and community foundation deadlines start appearing.

February. Gilman’s spring cycle closes February 25. Fund for Education Abroad cycles run through here.

March and April. Provider deadlines for summer and fall. Many local awards. Confirm your consortium agreement paperwork.

May through July. Departure logistics: visa, insurance, housing, immunizations, banking. Also the quiet season for local awards nobody applies to in summer.

The pattern to follow: you apply for study abroad scholarships roughly nine to twelve months before you go. A student who decides in April to go abroad in September has already missed most of the funding. It has nothing to do with their qualifications. The calendar simply closed while they were still deciding. (This is the single most common way funding study abroad goes wrong, and it is entirely fixable with one calendar reminder set today.)

What actually wins a Gilman (and awards like it)

Since the Gilman is the single most winnable major award, it is worth knowing what you are actually being asked for.

As of the 2026 cycle, the application requires four essays, each 500 words maximum:
1.    Motivations for Studying or Interning Abroad
2.    Knowledge and Skill Development through studying or interning abroad
3.    Gilman Scholars as Citizen Diplomats
4.    Contributions to U.S. Communities and Follow-on Service Project Proposal

That fourth one is where most applications have holes, and it is the easiest one to make strong. A project has a name, a place, and a date. A presentation series at the high school you graduated from. A workshop with your department. A partnership with your campus study abroad office aimed at first-generation students. A written piece for a publication you name (I offered to pen a monthly column for a newspaper while I was gone, which our study abroad office LOVED). “I will share my experience” is a feeling, and feelings do not get scored.

Three things I would tell any applicant, from the reading-the-applications side of the desk:
Be specific to the point of discomfort. Not “I want to experience another culture.” Name the course, the professor, the archive, the language level you are at now and the one you intend to reach.

Explain the obstacle honestly. These are need-based awards. Panels are not embarrassed by your circumstances, and a clear-eyed sentence about what standing between you and this trip does more work than any amount of polish.

Answer the “so what.” What changes for you, for your campus, and for the people back home because you went? Study abroad scholarships and grants are investments, and reviewers are looking for a return.

Then give your recommenders a month and a page of detailed notes to assist them with this favor they are doing you. Don’t give them a week and a hope! (Your recommenders will remember which one you gave them, forever. Make it easy for them to tell how you shine!)

Two things nobody tells you: displacement and taxes

These are the two facts I most wish someone had told my students, and I have never once seen them in a scholarship listicle.

One: winning money can reduce your other money. It is called scholarship displacement. When you report an outside award, some schools reduce your existing aid package. Well-run offices reduce loans and work-study first, which is a genuine win for you. Others reduce grants, and then you did all that work and netted nothing.

Two things to understand here, because the internet gets this wrong in both directions. Some reductions are federally required: when your total aid pushes you past your demonstrated need or past your cost of attendance, federal over-award rules oblige the school to adjust. That part is not your financial aid officer being difficult. But no federal rule requires a school to cut its own institutional grant simply because you won an outside award - that is institutional policy, and it varies enormously. As of 2026, five states (Maryland, first in 2017, plus New Jersey, Washington, Pennsylvania, and California) restrict displacement, and Texas now requires schools to disclose their policy. Most states do neither.

Ask your financial aid office this exact question, before you apply: “If I win an outside scholarship, what gets reduced first?” The answer determines your entire strategy for financing your study abroad. It is a completely ordinary question (they get asked it constantly!), and asking it marks you as a student who is paying attention. In my experience, the folks who work at financial aid are often working the hardest of anyone on campus to be sure you succeed. Make friends, ask questions, understand the ins and outs of what they tell you.

Two: part of your scholarship may be taxable. Under IRS rules, scholarship money is tax-free when you are a degree candidate and the money goes to qualified education expenses: tuition, required fees, and the books, supplies, and equipment required of everyone in the course. Money that covers room, board, and travel is generally taxable income - and airfare and living costs are exactly what study abroad awards tend to fund. A large share of a Gilman or a Freeman-ASIA award may land on the taxable side.

This is not a reason to turn anything down (obviously!). It is a reason to keep your receipts, know which portion was which, and not be blindsided in April. If the numbers are large, talk to someone who does taxes for a living. We do not offer tax advice here.

How to spot a scholarship scam

The volume of study abroad scholarship search results has attracted exactly the people you would expect.

Red flags include:
•    Any application fee. Legitimate scholarships do not charge you to apply. Ever.
•    “Guaranteed” awards or claims that you have already won something you never entered.
•    A request for your bank account, Social Security number, or a credit card to “hold” or “release” your award.
•    Pressure to decide immediately, or an unsolicited call about a scholarship you never heard of.
•    A service that offers to do your searching for a fee. Your study abroad office and financial aid office do this for free, and better.

The safe path is boring and it works: apply through your campus, your provider, and named national programs at .gov or long-established .org addresses. If something arrives in your inbox promising money you did not apply for, it is selling you something. Delete it and go back to our pre-departure checklist instead.

If you do not win anything

Some students apply for eight awards and win nothing. It happens, and it is not a verdict on you.

Options, roughly in order of how much they help: change the program (a direct-enrollment semester or an exchange can cost a fraction of what provider study abroad programs charge). Change the term (summer costs less than a semester, and short-term study abroad programs of a few weeks now make up the majority of American participation). Change the country (your dollar behaves very differently in different places - dramatically so). Delay by one term and apply into the next full cycle with the calendar finally on your side.

And apply again! Reapplication is normal and common. Selection panels change, cycles differ, and the second application is always better than the first, because by then you know what you are actually trying to say.

Study abroad scholarship questions we hear most

Can I really get a scholarship to study abroad?

Yes - and more easily than the internet’s anxious tone suggests! Between campus awards, provider grants, and national programs like the Benjamin Gilman International Scholarship awarding thousands of scholarships annually, funding study abroad is a normal outcome for a student who applies early and applies across several tiers at once.

Can I use my financial aid to study abroad?

Usually yes, for federal aid, when your home institution approves the program for credit, typically through a consortium agreement. Institutional scholarships from your own university are the ones most likely not to travel. Confirm both in writing.

How do I get a full scholarship to study abroad?

Fully funded routes do exist (the Critical Language Scholarship, a top-level Boren award, some provider internship awards, and exchange programs where you simply pay home tuition). More often, “full” is assembled by you: existing aid plus two or three awards plus the money you were already spending at home.

When should I apply for study abroad scholarships?

Nine to twelve months before departure. Deadlines cluster September through January, with a second wave in February and March. If you are reading this in late summer, you are early enough for the October cycle, which is the best position you can be in. Start your research today!

Can I apply for more than one scholarship at once?

Yes, and you should; that is the most successful strategy. Just ask your financial aid office about displacement first, so you know how multiple awards will interact with your aid package.

Are there study abroad scholarships for summer programs?

Yes! Gilman funds summer terms, Freeman-ASIA offers up to $3,000 for summer, the Critical Language Scholarship is itself a summer program, and the Fund for Education Abroad supports study abroad programs as short as 14 days. Summer is the most common format in the country, and the funding follows it.

Do community college students qualify?

Yes. The Gilman is open to undergraduates at accredited U.S. institutions including community colleges, and the Fund for Education Abroad runs a scholarship specifically for community college students.

Do I have to pay a study abroad scholarship back?

No. Scholarships and grants are not loans. What some carry instead is a service commitment - Boren’s federal service requirement, Gilman’s Follow-on Service Project. Read those terms before you accept, and then honor them.

The part I most want you to hear

That drawer of unclaimed scholarship money in the study abroad office has always been, to me, a story about who decides in advance and without any evidence that they are not the kind of person these things happen to.

You cannot win an award you do not apply for. You can absolutely win one you are not sure you deserve. The students I watched go abroad on somebody else’s money were the ones who filled out the form in October - not the strongest applicants in the building, just the ones who were there.

Go make an appointment with your study abroad office this week. Ask what they administer. Write down your gap. Start the first essay badly, on purpose, tonight. (Badly! On purpose! It works! Just start!). Keep tinkering – the more time you put into it, the stronger it will end up.

What would you study, and where, if the money were solved? Start there, and then work backward to the deadline.

Woman looking at departure board in airport
this part

Further study abroad and funding resources here on Wandering Educators:

•    Want to Study Abroad? Start Here!
•    Saving for Study Abroad: Financial Planning Tips for Students
•    How to Study Abroad for Free
•    How to Budget for Educational Travel Without Financial Stress
•    Studying Abroad? 5 Things You Need to Take Care Of…First
•    Studying Abroad in London? The Nitty Gritty
•    Faculty-Led Study Abroad
•    The 2015 White House Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship
•    Study Abroad Experiences That Shape Students Beyond the Classroom
•    Educational Travel Adventures for Adults: How to Choose a Program Worth Your Time

Get inspired!

Students share their study abroad experiences here on Wandering Educators:

Gilman

#StudyAbroadBecause it brings the world together!
#StudyAbroadBecause Future You Will Love You
Mulaifa: How a Study Abroad Journey Forged a Meaningful Connection
#StudyAbroadBecause... you’ll discover yourself in discovering your love for a new country

And click for over 100 interviews via our #studyabroadbecause

When you come back, we'd love to share YOUR story!

Jessie Voigts is the founder and publisher of Wandering Educators. She has a PhD in International Education, has lived and worked in Japan and London, and traveled around the world. She is constantly looking for ways to increase intercultural understanding, and is passionate about study abroad and international education.

Study Abroad Scholarships: Your Map To Where the Money Actually Is