The Office of Education Abroad strives to be as inclusive as possible and aims to reduce financial barriers that could otherwise limit the scope and potential of students to study abroad. On this page, you’ll find resources dedicated to financial empowerment, in order for you to understand that studying abroad can be affordable with the right planning and action!
1. Organization is key:
When studying abroad, it is imperative to establish a budget of projected spending beforehand in order to track how much can be spent, and on what. Remember that everyone is unique, so your spending distribution might not look like your friend’s. For example, if you are more of a food-oriented person, your budget allocation in this area might be larger compared to your cinema expenditures. We recommend you to consider your own lifestyle, priorities, and goals, reflecting upon how these will impact your budget.
Make sure you track your spendings properly and that your budget can accommodate everything you need. Various tracking softwares can help with this—we recommend Tiller’s one, or even building your own!
2. More specific tips:
Many of the main costs when living abroad are similar to costs you’d encounter here in the United States— housing, food, transport, and school-related expenditures are notable examples.
– Housing can often be the biggest expense. To try to decrease costs in this area, you might consider opting-in to have roommates, living further from your school (usually schools tend to be located in city centers, while living further away may lead to lower rents), or even signing-up for student housing.
-Food & Grocery shopping is the second highest cost as it is encountered on a regular basis. While the neighborhood where you shop will impact the price of the goods you buy (and that is a major thing to take into consideration), some alternatives might reveal themselves to be even more beneficial to you (food pantries, apps such as Too Good to Go, buying in bulk…)
-Transport can be costly, but walking (even up to 30 minutes), biking, or having an electric scooter are green, healthy, cheap alternatives to consider.
-School-related spendings are hard to waive but we recommend communicating with faculty, who may be, in most cases, able to entertain cheaper alternatives for your studio project or willing to advise you regarding a more cost-effective solution to your issue.
3. Financial help:
A. Pratt has several resources when it comes to scholarships.
Firstly, the Office of Education Abroad has scholarship funding available for students in the following categories: Pell students, Diverse Scholars, and HEOP students.
On top of that, the HEOP office can sometimes provide additional funding if students fit their eligibility criteria and reach out proactively.
The Student Financial Services is also a good resource to turn to as they can guide you on how to leverage your financial aid package, or even lead you to other funding opportunities.
B. Applying to outside, public scholarship is also a good initiative
Some of those scholarships are fairly known, such as the Benjamin Arthur Gilman, the Gilman McCain scholarship, or even the Fund for Education Abroad, meaning that they are more competitive, but still not unreachable.
C. Finding niche scholarships might be the way to go
Spending time researching niche scholarships tailored as much as possible to your identity, studies, ambitions, and prospects can make a difference. Identifying multiple niche scholarships, meaning those that may be less well-known, or only applicable to a small subset of people, and combining them can add-up to cover the costs of your experience abroad. You just need to allocate time to do efficient research.
Some examples of databases to conduct research in are Go Abroad, and Joy Worldwide. Pratt also has a list of niche scholarships, of which some can also be applied to international internships.