The U.S. State Department cut funding for abroad scholarship programs like the Fulbright Program in continued efforts to streamline government efficiency by the Trump administration, leaving scholarship recipients in the dust as they scramble to live without aid.
Approximately 3,500 Americans were awarded State Department scholarships and are currently abroad, while around 9,000 more are scheduled to go abroad within the next six months.
Future grantees are now speculating whether their scholarships will still be available, Mary Keister, a communications consultant for the Forum of Education Abroad, wrote in an email to the Daily Free Press.
“A stipend payment not going through or being rescinded would be detrimental to the safety and well-being of a Fulbrighter,” according to Gabriel Calistro, a recent Boston University graduate and former Fulbright Scholar.
Calistro was granted the Fulbright Research Award in 2023, where he spent time in Florence, Italy researching the potential impacts of microplastics on truffle soil community behavior and microbial succession. For his nine-month contract, he said he received about $15,000 for his living expenses, including rent, transportation and groceries.
“The whole point is [Fulbright is] meant for everyone. If anything, funding it more would make it more accessible,” according to Calistro. “I’m genuinely worried for people who are [abroad] … We’re still receiving the bare minimum, and arguably, the bare minimum of a decade ago.”
The funding freeze was issued mid-February and was expected to last 15 days. Scholars then received an email from the Institute of Internal Education, indefinitely pausing funding to “facilitate a review of programs and activities.”
Besides Fulbright, the freeze affects other Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs-funded programs, such as the Gilman Scholarship, Critical Language Scholarship and IDEAS program.
“The beauty of the program, and for which it is so well recognized, exists in the unrestricted opportunity it encourages,” according to Calistro. “It should concern everyone when academia, [and] the pursuit of knowledge, is hindered and flagged as dismissible or unnecessary.”
There are six Fulbright scholars from BU currently abroad worldwide and 11 visiting scholars studying at BU.
“The Provost’s office has reached out [to] all BU Fulbrighters abroad in recent days and weeks … those who responded say they are doing well and being supported as Fulbright English teaching assistants or researchers in the various host countries,” BU Spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press. “Our hope, of course, is that any holds on funding will be formally lifted. The Fulbright commissions abroad are providing assistance as they are able to support grantees for the remainder of the ongoing Fulbright cycle.”
With the fate of funding uncertain, future implementation of these programs by international organizations will be “severely compromised,” according to Keister.
“The U.S. is hurting its own economic interests by implementing this extraordinary freeze,” Melissa Torres, president and CEO of the Forum of Education Abroad, wrote in an email to the Daily Free Press. “Businesses will find it harder to hire workers with global skills [and] the 3,500 Americans who are currently abroad on scholarships will be less safe.”
After weeks of displacement, funding is starting to trickle out again for grant-funded programs, but the freeze has not been fully lifted, according to Keister.
Riley said Fulbright is on track to launch their new application cycle and BU is moving forward with the annual Fulbright Kickoff April 17, where attendees can expect an overview of the program and a panel of former BU Fulbright recipients to share their insights.
“Congress must follow through on the funding commitments they made if they want to preserve the future of America’s workforce and support student success,” Torres wrote.
