Financial Aid Facts

Academic Year Abroad is an academic service organization that arranges for the direct registration of students at select foreign universties with which it maintains legal agreements. It is not itself an academic institution and therefore cannot grant financial aid. However, students who wish to study with AYA in Madrid at the Universidad Carlos III, the Universidad Complutense, or the Universidad Autónoma, in Paris at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne or the Institut Catholique, or in Siena at the Università degli Studi may do so by "carrying" their grants and loans from their home institutions to Europe. This involves prior approval by the American or Canadian college or university of the course of study in which the student will be engaging at the European university. AYA will be glad to provide course listings/descriptions for the fields in which a student might be interested.

Here are some of the facts of the matter:

  • An American college or university may not deny its students federally-funded financial aid for study overseas so long as the course of study overseas is approved in advance for credit.
  • It is difficult to imagine that an American college or university would deny approval of course of study credit at one of these academically demanding universities. In the nearly forty years' experience of AYA, virtually no American or Canadian institution of higher learning has ever done so.
  • All students receiving federally-sponsored financial aid must have equal access to financial aid, even if they leave the home campus to study overseas.

For further information on US government regulations concerning financial aid for foreign study, see (or ask your financial aid adviser to see) Nancy Stubbs, "You Can Take It with You: The Practitioner's Guide to Financial Aid for Study Abroad," International Educator (VI, 2) Winter, 1997, 10-15