The Study Abroad Office received $40,000 last week for study abroad scholarships. If the money is not used in this fiscal year, it will be lost.

Since the fall semester has already started, the money can now only be used for the spring and summer study abroad trips.

To accommodate for this recent allocation, the spring deadline has been extended from Oct. 1 to Oct. 24 with the intention of increasing the number of students studying abroad, said Farhan Aziz, study abroad coordinator.

“One of the biggest hurdles in study abroad is finding the finances,” Aziz said. “Although we try to find programs that are comparable to Eastern’s cost of attendance, there’s always additional expenses when you go to a foreign country, so we’re trying to counteract that and make it easier for students by offering these types of funding and scholarships.”

Aziz said the allocation is the upper administration’s support for the study abroad office to increase the number of students going abroad.

“In order to enhance study abroad, one of the main things we would need is financial support and so this is one of the ways to make that happen,” he said.

Aziz said the study abroad office was expecting the money on some level.

“We didn’t know how much or when to expect it,” he said. “Apparently, right now we have $40,000 in total for the entire amount, and we can give up to $5,000 per student.”

The amount awarded to students depends on the number of recipients that apply, as well as if the student gets accepted into the program, Aziz said.

Students applying must also have at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA at the time of the application and must have attended Eastern full-time for one semester.

The recent allocation, called the Study Abroad Grant Scholarship, applies to any kind of study abroad experience, assuming the program the student’s applying for still has space available, Aziz said.

Before the allocation, Aziz said the office just had spring tuition waiver programs for students going to exchange programs with partner institutions.

Students can apply for the scholarship when they apply for the study abroad program.

The scholarship requires students to complete a study abroad application and a recommendation form, in addition to the application for the study abroad program.

If students have already applied to a study abroad program for the spring semester, they can still apply for the scholarship without having to reapply for the program.

Aziz said employers are looking at more international experience.

“It is shown that students who study abroad have better job offers so that’s why it’s so important to study abroad, and this is one of our ways to enhance those opportunities for students to graduate with a more valuable degree,” Aziz said.

He said not all the $40,000 would be used for the spring semester.

“We’re going to allocate some of that for the summer too so those students have a chance to have an affordable cost as well,” Aziz said.

If fewer students apply for the spring, the money leftover from the spring will be used for the summer.

Allocation

In a letter outlining his goals last January, President Bill Perry established five priorities for the university.

Those priorities were to “enhance support for excellence in faculty scholarship and teaching, in particular faculty-mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities, enhance service and leadership opportunities for students, enhance fine arts programming and outreach, enhance study abroad opportunities and enhance honors programs.”

“The money was allocated to study abroad in order to uphold the priority in the list above,” Perry said.

Perry said the source of the funds is from the overall state appropriations and tuition revenues.

Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said budget allocations, for something that is new to the budget and not just a continuation of a past practice, is a time-consuming process.

The process starts by having the continuations loaded to the budget first, he said.

“After that, things that are changes or new items have to be added individually,” Lord said. “The funding for the President’s initiatives are among those that have been put into the system most recently; hence, those items are only now available for me to expend.”

He said the decision to include these items in the budget was made as the budget year began.

“I can now start spending the funds, and we are moving ahead,” Lord said.

He said a new initiative has to be started at some point, and now was the time the university was able to.

“Because this will be an ongoing budget item, there will be more lead time for the Study Abroad Office to plan distributions in coming years,” Lord said.

Emily Zulz can be reached at 581-7942 or at eazulz@eiu.edu.