Schools
Ursinus College Receives Grant To Aid Students Studying Abroad
The Collegeville-based school was one of 40 across the country to receive grant funding from the Institute of International Education.
COLLEGEVILLE, PA — An area liberal arts college recently became one of 40 higher education institutions across the country who were selected to receive grant funding to help students obtain passports in order to study abroad.
Ursinus College, which sits just over the Perkiomen Township line in neighboring Collegeville Borough, announced this week that 25 Pell-eligible first-year students would have the chance to get a United States passport to help them study abroad.
The grant money from the Institute of International Education will help aid a total of 1,000 students across the country who are looking to study abroad.
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According to information on the Ursinus College website, the IIE American Passport Project is designed to promote “diversity, inclusion, access, and equity in study abroad. It supports the IIE’s global membership network in their efforts to encourage students who would otherwise not participate in an international experience as part of their college education.”
Paula Alvarez Tames, director of international programs at Ursinus, said in statement that the goal here is to give “real access to study abroad to all our students.
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“This grant will help us to eliminate the initial barrier of obtaining a passport so we can motivate underrepresented students to study abroad,” Alvarez Tames said in her statement. “We will help students to complete the passport forms, make passport pictures, and secure their appointments with the closest passport agency.”
The IIE says that it hopes to help around 10,000 U.S. college students obtain passports by the end of this decade.
Ursinus says that in this first year of the project, the Pennsylvania school was picked out of about 200 applications and was among the colleges “demonstrating the drive to restart the international initiatives they have been planning,” before the COVID 19 pandemic, according to the school’s website.
Visit Ursinus College’s website to learn more about this program and other items of interest at the school.
Click here to learn more about the Institute of International Education.
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