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Studying abroad – whether it is a student from the United States traveling to another country or a foreign student traveling to study in the United States – is becoming more and more popular with each passing year. Studies show that more than two hundred thousand students from the United States study abroad every year, while almost six hundred thousand international students seek to attend college in the United States. The only problem is the consideration of financial aid as it applies to international students. Fortunately, there now exists international student loans designed especially to help students from the United States to study abroad and to aid international students with studying in the United States. In fact, international studies are becoming so popular that most international student loan programs also help students from Canada to study elsewhere and international students to come study in Canada.

As mentioned, there are international student loans available for international students who wish to study in either the United States or in Canada. The number of students worldwide who want to do this is increasing exponentially every year. In general, international students who wish to apply for international student loans have to meet eligibility requirements and certain criteria, such as, their school of choice must be a TERI-approved school. Furthermore, a student must have someone in the United States who is willing to cosign his or her loan.

For students from the United States and Canada who want to study abroad, there are an incredible number of options for international student loans. There are Study Abroad Loans, which apply to students who are United States citizens and permanent residents who are currently enrolled in the school which they attend in the United States. This loan is excellent for those students who only intend to study abroad for a short period of time – a semester or two.

Foreign Enrolled Loans are international student loans offered to United States citizens and residents who wish to receive a degree from a school outside of the United States – as long as it is an approved school. This program offers funding for the entire span of a student’s college career.

The ever-popular Stafford Loans are also available, to either United States citizens or non-citizens who meet eligibility requirements (i.e., permanent residents). It applies to students who want to study abroad, while they are still enrolled in a college or university in the United States, but also to students who want to enroll in an approved international school.

Scholarships and grants are also available to students who want to study abroad or here in the United States. However, those are often not enough to cover the amount of money a student will need. The purpose of international student loans is to try and bridge the gap and make sure that a student who wishes to study elsewhere will have the finances and the means to do so. In past years, studying abroad has been difficult because of the high cost, but with the desire of students to study abroad getting higher every year, there are more and more international student loans becoming available every year in counterpoint.

Education is a tricky thing. If you make it too routine, students lose interest. If you make it too exciting, they only play, and fail to learn. Somewhere in the midst of information that must be given for learning and minds that must be engaged for receiving, is the objective in education. Add into that mix a desire to raise children who have an authentic, transforming faith in God, and you have something uniquely challenging. One place that you often find these challenges is in a homeschool setting.

How do you make it all work? As a homeschooler, you may be just about to crack open those new books you just bought, and the Bible is nearby for Bible study, but there has to be something that binds these things together in meaningful, practical ways. The answer is illustrated in Frito chips. Just saying the word, Fritos, you may know what I’m talking about.

Fritos cannot be eaten without leaving behind a trail. They fulfill that craving for salt that we all have, as does the Bible, creating believers who are the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Yet Fritos also do something else. They stay with you. They invade your senses – the smell of Fritos is unmistakable, the look of them is unlike any other chip, they crunch just right, the taste is so unique that other chip-makers rarely try to imitate them, and they leave behind an oily layer of salty residue that doesn’t rub off easily from our fingers.

This is how our teaching should be. All that we do as we seek to teach and train our children should be permeated with the undeniable and unmistakable “sense” of permanence. Teaching math is not just about square roots. It’s about an orderly system and tools to understand our world within that system. Likewise, English is not just about this author or that one, but rather about the mind, ideas that connect us to others, ways to express truth and emotion. Understanding the long-term relevance of our studies, we can much more effectively teach perseverance and character development from a faith perspective. How our students interact when studying is a reflection of how they interact with others. There should be a “residue” on all that they do that speaks to their integrity, and as parents, to ours.

Like the Frito illustrates, blending together learning and faith is a commitment to staying with it. We should be able to see the evidence of our learning and of our faith, in all aspects of what we are striving to teach. The balance between these things should be seamless, and as educators, it is our job to teach and train with this permeating goal in mind.

When considering whether or not to finance your child’s post-secondary education, you need to know – before you spend the big bucks – that your teen is sufficiently committed to higher education so that your investment will yield valuable returns.

If your teen asked you for $200,000 to invest in a franchise, what would you do? Would you run for a pen and your checkbook and quickly hand over $200,000? Of course not. I think most parents would have a long list of questions prepared, such as:

a) What about this business interests you?
b) Is this something you have the experience to run?
c) What are the annual costs to maintain the business?
d) How much income are you expecting to see?

Yet, when it comes to college, many parents will write a check blindly. Shouldn’t the same questions be asked of your teen?

As parents, we all want to “invest” in our children. Many of us feel we owe it to our children to provide a college education. Even immigrants working in low-income positions sacrifice to see their offspring go to college, so that they can lead better lives than their parents.

It continually amazes me that relatively smart people who work hard to provide for their families blithely hand over a tuition check without asking questions. As badly as we parents want to provide shouldn’t our children bear a personal responsibility for using our money wisely? Apparently, many do not – I hear students who fail courses say very often, “Oh, my parents are paying, it’s OK.” I think to myself:

Do these parents know their teen doesn’t do homework?
Do they know he was frequently absent or late to class?
Did he tell them he was in academic difficulty and not seeking help?
Do they know he uses the same study strategies all the time that yield the same poor results?

There was NO WAY I was going to allow that to happen with either of my sons.

Whether parents pay outright for college or finance it, it is a HUGE financial commitment and it should come with strings attached. Not strings such as: “We want to see all ‘A’s and B’s,” but strings such as – “We expect that you will give this your full effort, take as much advantage of the support services as you need, and leave partying for the nights you don’t have school the following day.” If your teen can’t look you in the eye and honestly agree to those conditions, then you shouldn’t be wasting your financial resources. Save it for when your teen is actually mature enough to want to succeed.