The Gilman International Scholarship is a national one, with 3600 awards ranging of up to $5,000 during this academic year alone. If you are going abroad to study a less commonly studied language deemed critical to security of the U.S. (A list is available on the website.), you could be eligible for an additional $3000 award. Students planning on studying in Japan should definitely apply for a Gilman Scholarship and supplementary critical language award.

They scholarship is described on the Gilman website in these terms:

“The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is a grant program that enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, thereby gaining skills critical to our national security and economic competitiveness.

The Gilman Scholarship Program is open to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide.”

Applications are normally accepted in October and March. First a notice is sent to the Office of International Education. Then an email goes out to eligible students. Interested students complete their applications and both the Office of International Education and the Office of Financial Aid certify and submit the applications online to complete the process. For general Gilman eligibility guidelines, please see here. 

Boren Scholarships are federally-funded grants which provide up to $20,000 to U.S. undergraduate students to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad. These scholarships are funded by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), which focuses on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study deemed critical to U.S. national security. According to the International Institute for Education (IIE), applicants must “identify how their study abroad programs or overseas projects, as well as their future academic and career goals, will contribute to U.S. national security, broadly defined. NSEP draws on a broad definition of national security, recognizing that the scope of national security has expanded to include not only the traditional concerns of protecting and promoting American well-being, but also the challenges of global society, including sustainable development, environmental degradation, global disease and hunger, population growth and migration, and economic competitiveness.”

The 2021 application will open in mid-August on February 3, 2021 for the undergraduate Boren Scholarships. Please see the website cited above for eligibility and application information.