Critical Need Languages include:

Arabic (all dialects)

Chinese (all dialects)

Turkic (Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgz, Turkish, Turkmen, Uzbek)

Persian (Farsi, Dari, Kurdish, Pashto, Tajiki)

Indic (Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Sinhala, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi)

Korean

Russian

Swahili

 

Award Benefits

Over 1,700 scholarships of up to $5,000 will be awarded this academic year for U.S. citizen undergraduates to study abroad. Award amounts will vary depending on the length of study and student need with the average award being approximately $4,000. Undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at two-year or four-year colleges or universities are eligible to apply.

Students who apply for and receive the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad are then eligible to receive an additional $3,000 Critical Need Language Supplement from the Gilman Scholarship Program for a total possible award of up to $8,000. 50 Critical Need Language Supplements were offered to Gilman Scholarship recipients during the 2008-2009 academic year.