While Ferris’ International Student Program is continuously growing, the students have few options for scholarships provided to them.
The only available Ferris scholarships for international students are the Woodbridge N. Ferris Scholarship and the International Transfer Scholarship.
Originally from Brazil, finance and economics sophomore Pedro Saltini started financially preparing himself at a young age so he was able to attend college in the U.S.
“There are a lot of financial requirements you need to meet,” Saltini said. “I started working at the age of 13 and saved a lot of money, got a lot of professional experience and then at the age of 16, I opened my own IT business. I did not want my parents to use their retirement funds to pay for my schooling, so I decided that I was going to take on the responsibility.”
According to Saltini, it’s unfortunate that there are no more scholarships available to international students.
“I would really love to see scholarships dedicated to progress and recognition of international students,” Saltini said. “This past year, I got awarded one of the 10 best economic students in the country, and Ferris did not help me financially at all that year.”
Saltini explained how he was awarded alongside Harvard students, John Hopkins students and Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, which brought a lot of recognition to Ferris. However, Saltini still struggled to afford schooling here.
Nonetheless, Saltini is very grateful for the education he has gotten from Ferris and is motivated to continue to provide and produce for this university.
Animation and game design sophomore Nhi Tran explained that the first year for international students can be a struggle due to everything they have to buy from Ferris.
“As international students, we have to stay in the dorm the first year,” Tran said. “When we stay in the dorms, we have to get a meal plan, and both of them are very expensive. After I moved off campus, the money that I had to pay for Ferris dropped a lot.”
Tran also agrees that the lack of scholarships for international students is unfair.
“We try a lot to get scholarships, but scholarships stopped at $10,000,” Tran said. “We can do better, and we may have higher GPAs or some higher achievements, so I feel like some of us who try more, deserve more than that. But due to the limited scholarships that we have, we had no other options.”
Executive Director of International Education Tara Braun explained that this problem is something that the International Office is working to improve.
“This is an area that we need more support in,” Braun said. “We are looking for other pathways for international students to be able to afford to come to Ferris.”
Braun believes that we need to recognize that the international student population will continue to grow here at Ferris, and a commitment needs to be made to provide assistance and different pathways for them.