We are hosting an online information session tomorrow (February 7) at 3:30 pm EST (New York). Learn more about SIPA’s two year MIA/MPA program from where ever you are.
You will need a computer with audio, internet connection and Adobe Flash player. Please register to get login information before the start of the session. And then simply login from your computer at 3:30 pm. See you then.
Boren Fellowships provide up to $30,000 to U.S. graduate students to add an important international and language component to their graduate education through specialization in area study, language study, or increased language proficiency. Boren Fellowships support study and research in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests, including Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The countries of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are excluded. For a complete list of countries, click here.
Boren Fellows represent a variety of academic and professional disciplines, but all are interested in studying less commonly taught languages, including but not limited to Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Swahili. For a complete list of languages, click here.
Boren Fellowships are funded by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), which focuses on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study deemed critical to U.S. national security. Applicants should identify how their projects, as well as their future academic and career goals, will contribute to U.S. national security, broadly defined. NSEP draws on a broad definition of national security, recognizing that the scope of national security has expanded to include not only the traditional concerns of protecting and promoting American well-being, but also the challenges of global society, including sustainable development, environmental degradation, global disease and hunger, population growth and migration, and economic competitiveness.
To view the Program Basics of the Boren Fellowships, click here.
Application deadline: January 31, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. EST. For more information about the application process, click here.
Boren Fellowship applicants will be notified of their status by mail in early May.
In our previous blog entry about student loan repayment, we discussed the initial decision to borrow, the types of loans available to SIPA students, and the resources to keep track of when your loan payments come due and to whom you will make payments. Now let’s look at how to determine monthly payments and some of the flexible repayment options that can make managing student loan debt easier.
There are a number of repayment options once you get to that stage (for many loans, you don’t enter into full repayment until after you have graduated or ceased your enrollment). Different repayment options include Standard Repayment, Extended Repayment, Graduated Repayment, Income Based Repayment and Income Contingent Repayment; the different options can provide you with flexibility, lower your monthly payments, or calculate monthly payments as a portion of your income. But study these plans carefully…lower monthly payments can also mean a higher cost over the life of the loan, and not every borrower qualifies for every plan. Other students choose to consolidate multiple loans into one payment and prefer that convenience. Click here and check out the links under the “Borrower Info” menu for more information on the Federal Direct Consolidation Loan program.
Remember that these repayment plans and the consolidation option only apply to federal student loans. If you borrow any private loans, they cannot be consolidated, and repayment options tend to be more limited, typically with less consumer protection (which is why the SIPA Financial Aid Office generally recommends that students investigate federal student loans first).
Any time you borrow, you’ll want to know what your monthly payments will be. There are a number of online loan repayment calculators, and we recommend that you visit one to learn more about how much your monthly payment would be based on how much you borrow. One calculator is available at https://studentloans.gov (click on the Repayment Plans and Calculators link); it offers a comparison in monthly and aggregate payment amounts, including how much interest a borrower will pay, under different repayment plans offered by the US Department of Education. Another good set of loan repayment calculators can be found at www.finaid.org (click on Calculators and then scroll down to Loans). There you will see a number of links for specific repayment plans available to many borrowers.
In a future post, we plan to discuss options for temporarily stopping payments after you have begun making them, and a new exciting initiative that could save many SIPA graduates a lot of money based on their career choices – the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
We’re at it again. Our last session was well attended and we received some great questions so we thought it may be helpful to host another virtual session for those who were unable to make the morning presentation.
Tomorrow we will be online at 3:00 pm EST (15:00) to speak with those of you who are not “morning” people (or in the middle of R.E.M. sleep).
If you are interested in learning more about SIPA, register to get the login information. We hope to virtually meet you on Tuesday, November 13.
Student Loans
About 40% of SIPA students use student loans as part of their financing strategy, and there are a number of options available to them. Most borrow fixed rate loans from the federal government, which offer flexible repayment options. Most federal loans are not credit-based, but have annual limits to the amount that can be borrowed; the Graduate PLUS loan is the exception to both of these rules. But other credit-based loans are available from private lenders, some of which may be available to international students so long as they have a US citizen who can co-sign the loan for them.
For students who are US citizens, permanent resident aliens, or political refugees, the federal government makes a number of loan programs available that students can use, if necessary, to fund the full cost of their education, including living expenses. In order to be considered for any loan from the federal government, a student must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. There are three different federal loan programs available to graduate students. They are:
There are also loans available from private lenders. Private loans do not require completion of the FAFSA, and some are available to international students who have a US citizen who can co-sign the loan form them (click here for some loans available to international students). Most private loans do not have strict annual limits and can be borrowed for the full cost of attendance minus other aid. At this time, interest rates tend to be lower than those of federal loans, but federal loan interest rates are fixed, and private loans (which are much less regulated) are variable. Private loans also tend to offer borrowers less flexibility and fewer features during repayment than federal loans. All students are free to select their own loan products and lenders, but due to repayment flexibility and the certainty of fixed interest rates, most SIPA students have opted to use federal loans.
In a future blog post, we will discuss student loan repayment; there are many repayment options available for federal loans that can make your student loans manageable, even one that could forgive some of your indebtedness.
"The most global public policy school, where an international community of students and faculty address world challenges."
—Merit E. Janow, Dean, SIPA, Professor of Practice, International and Economic Law and International Affairs
Office of Admissions & Financial Aid
514 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10025
Main: 212.854-6216
Fax: 212.854.3010
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