AFSA Student Loans- A Blessing For Needy Students

AFSA is the professional organization of the United States Foreign Service. It consists of around 14,000 dues-paying members and 23,000 working as well as retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State and Agency for International Development (AID). It also represents smaller groups in the Foreign Commercial Service (FCS), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), US, and International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).

AFSA provides a college scholarship program for Foreign Service employees' children. Foreign Service employees could be working, retired with pension, separated or deceased. It is mandatory as per AFSA laws that the employee must have served or shall be working for not less than a year with any foreign affairs agency, which include Department of State, USAID, FCS, FAS or IBB. AFSA provides students Financial Aid Scholarships and Merit Awards (Art and/or Academic). Students can get the scholarships and/or awards only if they meet eligibility requirements. A student to get an AFSA Financial Aid Scholarship must as an undergraduate regularly attend a two years or four years course from accredited school, college or university. He or she should keep up a satisfactory academic record and complete his or her under grad degree in four years. For the Financial Aid Scholarship the student must also demonstrate his or her financial requirement. Similarly, a student to be eligible for an AFSA Merit Award must have at least one parent associated with AFSA. The student should be a senior of high school and maintain a satisfactory academic record. Thus, if students meet the abovementioned eligibility requirements, they may apply for AFSA scholarship programs. They can download the application form from AFSA website and may send their applications by post, email, piece-meal, or fax. It is necessary that students fill in their applications diligently and completely because AFSA does not process any application that is incomplete. Also, it is the responsibility of the students to make sure that their all scholarships documents arrive at AFSA by February 6. It is to be noted here that the students who apply for AFSA Financial Aid Scholarships have to reapply every year for the scholarship in order to get full scholarship. However, students need not reapply for AFSA Merit Awards (Academic and Art) as they are bestowed only one time. When the students receive scholarships or awards, they must send back a thank you letter to their scholarship benefactor. Students are given AFSA Financial Aid Scholarships to supplement college financial support. So the Financial Aid Scholarships cannot cut or reduce university grants or scholarships. Thus, AFSA student loans provide adequate financial assistance to the needy students so that they can realize their aim to do study further.