Scholarships

At USF, many scholarships require committing to a program before you are eligible to receive them. USF wants to award students who are serious about attending the programs. Thus a program deposit may be required before you can be awarded money. Ultimately, if you receive enough scholarship money, you could get a refund for your deposit. Although the awards are completive, they are attainable. Depending on your program, your normal financial aid can be applied to the study abroad program. In summer 2018, even Florida Bright Futures can apply in some cases. Once you know the program or type of program you want to do, you should make an appointment (or visit walk ins) to speak to a financial aid advisor to figure out exactly what financial aid you are eligible for. If you do not normally get aid for summer classes, then it might be better to look into fall or spring programs.

A great way to gain additional scholarships is through unique programs and opportunities. If a student is applying through USF to general study abroad scholarships, they have a larger pool of students they are competing against for the scholarships. If they apply to major or program specific scholarships, then they are more likely to gain scholarships. During my time here (2014-2017), the Muma College of Business has recently received a lot of funding. Therefore many more scholarships exist for business students. Through this link students complete a questionnaire to help them filter through the available scholarships based on their major, ethnicity, academic level, GPA, etc. Students then can only apply to the scholarships for which they match the requirements. Most of these applications ask for a statement of purpose and a statement of financial need, as well as a resume and maybe another essay depending on who or what organization is sponsoring the scholarship. There are three scholarship cycles: Fall, Spring, and Summer. Summer has the most applicants, where as Spring and Fall recipients receive more money since their programs cost more (weighted).

Additional resources for scholarships are the Office of National Scholarships (ONS) located next to the Honors College in the Allen building, as well as the Global Citizens Project, a newer funding source on campus. Students can also receive scholarships from outside the university. There are a variety of websites that provide databases of resources, such as Fast Web.

Another unique way students can find funding is by reaching out to organizations that are related to their major or their program. For example, one student (a GloBull Ambassador) who studied in Russia reached out to a local Russian club and was given money to help pay for their program!

I received a scholarship just for committing to my program through the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy. It was the first time they offered accounting courses for USF in London; in order to get students to apply and commit to the program, they offered these scholarships. In addition, I spent hours during the spring semester writing essays, finding more scholarships to apply to, and asking everyone I knew to review my applications. I thought of it this way: if I spend 3 hours on an application that ends up getting me $1,000, I practically got paid $333 an hour!

Ultimately, I also received need-based grants from USF, which combined with the accounting scholarships, covered the cost of my program. At first, I was told I would only receive the larger source of funding. Since the sum of the amounts did not exceed my program costs, I was able to receive both. It did require meeting with my financial advisor a few times, but time is money, and it paid off in the end.