Applying for Foreign Language and Area Studies funding at a university you don't attend

[cassonova]

I was recently surprised to learn that many universities with FLAS funding open applications to graduate students from other universities. For example, a friend of mine who is a Georgetown grad student got FLAS funding from the University of Michigan to do a summer program in Brazil. I think that the University of Michigan gave her the scholarship because they did not receive enough applications from their own students. 

My question is if anyone has heard of people applying for FLAS funding from third party universities during the academic year. I would like to study a critical language at an area studies program that does not receive and I was wondering if I could apply for the funding at other universities.  

[Chris K]

I received FLAS and TItle VIII funding to study Albanian at Arizona State even though I am a student at Ohio State.  My Title VIII was through Arizona State but my FLAS was through my home institution.  Many departments will give students at their institutions FLAS funding to learn a language at another university (typically ASU and U Pitt) if they do not offer the language and you write a really good proposal.  So typically its your own institution from which you are receiving the money and not the host institution.  Some schools open their FLAS competition to external applicants but generally will favor their own students.  To circumvent this, many schools offer other avenues of funding such as scholarships and Title VIII, although it is usually only for severely understudied languages (Albanian, Armenian, BCS, Polish, Turkish, etc.).  For Eastern European and Eurasian languages, I would look at ASU and Pitt--they typically have the most offerings and funding options.  Also, it never hurts to contact the department director at the school your are interested in studying a language at.  What language are you wanting to study?

Oh, I forgot to mention, most schools will only offer funding for external summer study and not academic year (it cost them too much for that).  Hence, your friend receiving money for a summer program.  My program at ASU was summer as well.  However, I am sure this is on a case-by-case basis. 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Chris K

[mrs12]

From what I know, summer FLAS are sometimes available to outside-students in places where the host school doesn't have enough applicants of their own. And this, usually, only for the most understudied languages under the FLAS umbrella. I've never heard of it being offered for an academic year FLAS, and honestly I've only seen the summer FLAS given to students studying at FLAS-sites who themselves come from a university without FLAS. But that's just my experience!