Ellington

UW junior Elizabeth Benitez didn’t want to study abroad to discover a new culture. Instead, she was going abroad to rediscover her own. One main obstacle, however, stood in her way: money.

In recent years, the rising costs in airfare, tuition and housing have left many study-abroad students in debt. In order to account for financial issues, students are forced to use a combination of their own savings and student loans, Global Opportunities Adviser Sara Stubbs said. Stubbs believes that money is a deterrent for many students who want to study abroad.

Stubbs has recently joined the UW Center for Experiential Learning and Diversity to teach students about their options.

“I think [money] is a big concern for students coming from all financial backgrounds, but particularly students who are Pell Grant- and Husky Promise-eligible,” Stubbs said. “Being at the university and paying for the expenses that are associated with all the costs that students face, the additional costs of studying abroad are a concern for those students a lot of times.”

In order to avoid debt, students can find financial relief from the UW to help fund their trips. Stubbs said scholarships offered through the UW International Programs and Exchanges (IPE) office, which awarded 41 scholarships this past fall quarter, are popular among students with financial needs.

The UW offers two scholarships specifically for students going abroad. The Global Opportunities (GO!) Scholarship and the Fritz Undergraduate Scholarship both award between $2,000 and $5,000 to each recipient. Eric Baldwin, the operations and scholarship manager for the UW IPE, said the GO! Scholarship received 419 applicants during the 2010-2011 school year and 429 applicants in 2009-2010.

“Costs like tuition, fees, and living expenses have always been a big issue for students with significant financial need, especially Husky Promise- and Pell Grant-eligible students,” Stubbs said. “The GO! Scholarship is designed to help provide access to study abroad to students with significant financial need.”

Last winter, Benitez was awarded $2,000 for her trip to Ecuador. Without the money she received through the GO! Scholarship, Benitez would have been forced to take out loans to fund her trip.

While the Fritz scholarship requires a minimum 3.0 GPA and is directed toward students in the social sciences, the GO! Scholarship is open to all majors who are Pell Grant- and Husky Promise-eligible.

This was important to recent UW graduate Aparna Lakshman, who found few scholarships open to biology majors studying abroad. Without the GO! Scholarship, she would have been unable to travel abroad for a pre-med study abroad program.

“A lot of scholarships are limited to citizens and to certain majors, and I am not a citizen,” said Lakshman, who emigrated from Oman four years ago. “I had to pay for my trip out of my own pocket, and I definitely couldn’t have gone [without the scholarship]. Basically, I was relying on it.”

Stubbs said the GO! Scholarship, which is funded by the Washington state Legislature, has awarded around $210,000 to students with financial need per year for the past two years. The application process includes an 800-word essay in which students explain why they want to go abroad, along with a 300-word essay to explain adverse factors such as financial limitations.

“We want them to be able to articulate how this experience is going to broaden their worldview,” Stubbs said. “We also want them to be able to articulate more about global citizenship, and that can mean something very different to different students.”

Benitez kept these points in mind when writing her essay for the GO! Scholarship. She spoke about her own worldview and explained how going to Ecuador would help her break the language barrier she’s faced with her own parents, who only speak Spanish.

“I have a lot of difficulty communicating with my parents because of the language barrier, [since] they don’t speak English,” she said. “I speak pretty decent Spanish, but not enough to fully get my point across and say what I really want to say. I kind of halfway say what I mean because I don’t have the vocabulary to say it.”

Laksham, however, took a different route with her essay. With the help of IPE advisors and the UW Writing Center, Laksham wrote about her immigration to America and how that affected her desire to enter the medical field.

Scholarships such as the GO! and the Fritz have opened up opportunities for students such as Laksham and Benitez, which makes Laksham grateful, as she believes that “you shouldn’t allow money to be a boundary.”

Reach reporter Jillian Stampher at news@dailyuw.com.