For Blind Foreign Students, Some Aid Available in US

For Blind Foreign Students, Some Aid Available in US

Part 36 of our Foreign Student Series: a listener in Nigeria asks if visually impaired foreign students can get a full scholarship as an undergraduate. Transcript of radio broadcast:
09 May 2007 



This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

A listener in Nigeria has a question about financial aid for blind and visually impaired college students in America. S.A. Ogunlowo in Ile-Ife wants to know if visually impaired foreign students can get a full scholarship as an undergraduate.

[In 2004, Tim Cordes, who is blind, graduated near the top of his medical school class at the University of Wisconisn-Madison]

Financial aid programs in the United States, especially at the undergraduate level, do often require American citizenship. At the same time, scholarships often pay only part of the cost of an education. The National Federation of the Blind advises students to contact any school they wish to attend to ask about financial aid.

The federation is the country's largest group for the blind. Each year it awards scholarships that do not have any citizenship requirements. Students must be legally blind. And foreign students cannot apply until a college in the United States has already accepted them.

The application deadline was March thirty-first for thirty scholarships offered for this fall. Most are three thousand dollars. The highest is twelve thousand dollars.

The United States has an estimated one million blind adults. The federation says there are no special colleges or universities for the blind. But schools do offer special services and technology to help students with disabilities.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. More information about the scholarships from the National Federation of the Blind can be found at its Web site: n-f-b dot o-r-g (nfb.org). This was week number thirty-six in our series for students interested in coming to the United States for higher education. If you missed any of our reports, you can find our Foreign Student Series online at voaspecialenglish.com. And if you have a question, send it to special@voanews.com. Please include your name and country. I'm Steve Ember.