How does one in the US pay for attending a school outside the US? (e.g., Heriot-Watt) Can traditional financial aide be used? Or is it only through personal loans?
One can apply for US DOE financial aid and receive, for example, Stafford loans for graduate study or different kinds of federal loans for undergraduate study. Your school should have a DOE code (search previous threads for 'Federal Financial Aid at Foreign Universities' or the like). There is not much difference between applying for aid at a domestic vs. international school. Fill out the FAFSA, send the certification sheet to a financial aid administrator at the foreign school, then have the loan originator send your check directly to your US address instead of overseas. This last point turns out to be very important! Good luck. -John
You can get a Stafford Loan if you're studying half time at an approved institution. I know you can use them for the Executive MBA at LBS (the information about them is on the horribly depressing page listing the LBS fees), so in theory there should be no obstacle to using them for HW. I have a vague memory that this question has been bounced around both here and on AED, so a search ofthe archives might pull up something. I seem to recall that the answer depended on how the non-US university defined "part-time": if it said doing the part-time or DL course was the equivalent of half-time study, you got a loan, if it claimed it was a third or a quarter, you didn't. Angela
Or you can do as I did: pay for it out of current cash flow. I did the MBA at HWU, and paid for each course out of pocket. Unfortunately, my employer, a small company, does not reimburse for graduate education. But on the upside, I had no loans to pay back when I finished. Regards, Michael Lloyd Mill Creek, Washington USA
