American Foreign Service Association Scholarship

Scholarship Sponsored by American Foreign Service Association

The AFSA Scholarship Program offers college aid to children of AFSA members whose parents are/were Foreign Service employees. We provide financial aid scholarships to undergraduates and academic merit awards, art merit awards, and a community service award to graduating high school seniors. The above activities could not happen without the generous bequests and donations from those in the Foreign Service community. No AFSA membership dues are used in the AFSA Scholarship Program. This robust AFSA member benefit has disbursed more than $4.3 million to 2,300 students in the last 26 years.

What Do I Need to Know?

The AFSA scholarship program is open to the children of Foreign Service employees whose parents must also be members of the American Foreign Service Association. The employee may be active-duty, retired, separated or deceased. Click here for additional eligibility criteria. AFSA offers aid to high school seniors who can compete for academic and art merit awards as well as a community service award; we also offer financial aid scholarships to tax-dependent undergraduates.

To be eligible for the AFSA Scholarship Fund Program:

Only the children of Foreign Service employees, whose parent(s) is a member of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), are eligible to apply for an AFSA award/scholarship. A student must be claimed as a dependent on the most recent IRS tax form by his/her parent(s) or guardian(s). An AFSA member is or has been an employee (active duty, retired, deceased, and/or separated) with a foreign affairs agency as defined by the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Department of State, USAID, USIA, USAGM, FCS, FAS or APHIS). Children of AFSA Scholarship Committee members are ineligible for AFSA awards or scholarships. For those high school students whose parents are not in the U.S. Government Foreign Service, please view information on AFSA's High School Essay Contest.

Financial Aid Scholarships

To be eligible to apply for an AFSA undergraduate Financial Aid Scholarship, a student must:

A) Be a current high school senior or college freshman, sophomore or junior.

B) Be a dependent child of a Foreign Service employee who is an American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) member. The AFSA member must be or have been an employee (active duty, retired, deceased, and/or separated) with a foreign affairs agency as defined by the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Department of State, USAID, USIA, USAGM, FCS, FAS or APHIS).

C) Have a minimum GPA of 2.75.

D) Demonstrate financial need.

To apply, you will need to visit the International Scholarship & Tuition Services account login page by clicking here. If you do not already have an account with ISTS, you can create one there.