Undergraduate students in the United States who intend to study abroad this year are encouraged to submit applications for scholarships offered through the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship program, according to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the US Department of State.

The deadline to submit scholarship applications for the academic year 2023/24 is Thursday, March 9, 2023, according to a press statement from the US Department of State.

Students must have received Pell Grants, which are normally offered to undergraduate students from low-income families, in order to be eligible for the program.

In 2001, the Benjamin Gilman Scholarship program was established. Since then, the program has provided financial assistance to more than 36,000 students from 50 US states so they can pursue academic studies or internships in more than 155 other nations.

Nearly 70% of recipients of Gilman scholarships self-identify as members of racial or ethnic minorities; 60% said they are from rural or small towns; and 50% are first-generation college students.

In October 2022, more than 1,000 American undergraduate students from 452 colleges were chosen for the Gilman Scholarship Program.

According to data from the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report, 14,549 US students studied abroad in the academic year 2020–21, with more than half of them being hosted in Europe. In comparison to the 2019–20 school year, when 162,633 American students travelled abroad to pursue their studies, that figure was down 91 percent.

Texas A&M University – College Station, which sent a total of 569 students, was followed by Georgia Institute of Technology, which sent 404 students, Florida State University, which sent 400 students, Miami University – Oxford, which sent 391 students, University of Texas – Austin, which sent 388 students, New York University, which sent 336 US students, and University of South Carolina – Columbia, which sent a ton of students.

The Open Doors 2022 study also showed that, from 914,095 in the academic year 2020–2021 to 948,519 in the following year, there were 4% more foreign students enrolled in US universities and colleges in 2021/22.