On Feb. 12, the State Department implemented a 15-day suspension on the disbursement of grant money to professors and students who were part of the Fulbright or Critical Language Scholarship programs.
Affected students and teachers were emailed about changes to their scholarships. Some were left abroad without their grant money.
According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, 85% of the suspended State Department payments have been paid. Still, it is taking a long time for the funding to be fully restored and for related institutions to stabilize.
ASU participants in both the Fulbright and Critical Language programs have been prompted to reconsider how secure the future of federally funded global education is.
Kyle Mox, the director of the Office of National Scholarship Advisement at ASU and a member of the advisory committee for the Institute of International Education, said the IIE is currently working with a very small staff. This is mainly so that they can put their cut-down budget toward funding Fulbright scholarships.
The IIE is an agency of the State Department which organizes scholarships like the Fulbright program.
According to Mox, a “number of students abroad” had their funding paused, as well as some who hadn’t left yet but were set to receive scholarships.
“So they received awards, were preparing to go in March or later, and were uncertain if they were unable to go to the university (abroad). The University leadership stepped in and was making arrangements to support those students so they could continue with their fellowships as planned.”
Mox said most of these issues have been resolved, as the funding has already partially been restored and will soon be running as usual.
“We have been going forward as if everything will go forward because there’s been no official word that these programs have been officially stopped,” he said.
Still, Mox said it was important for students and professors to ask questions about the programs and their futures.
“Students and faculty and all American citizens do have a reason to be concerned anytime their government makes decisions that they’re unclear about or unsure about … that’s not just our right, but our duty, to ask questions and to know why things are being done,” he said.
Salvador Meneses Requena, a Ph.D. student studying sustainability and the vice president of the Fulbright International Student Association at ASU, is from Mexico and studying at ASU on a Fulbright scholarship.
Fulbright scholars from Mexico are under the care of the U.S.-Mexico Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange. As a result, Meneses Requena was not directly impacted by the Fulbright funding cuts, but he knew many students at ASU who were.
On one hand, Meneses Requena said some students’ tuition depended on IIE funding. After the federal directive was made, these students received an email telling them that funding had been suspended indefinitely.
On the other hand, he said cuts to the State Department have led to delays in work authorizations, travel requests and required academic trainings that the IIE is in charge of. He believes that, at best, this is an inconvenience, and at worst, it endangers students’ post-graduate career plans.
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Harrison Worden, a sophomore studying electrical engineering, was a Critical Language scholar in 2024. He spent the summer studying in Indonesia and is now an alumni ambassador for the program.
Worden explained that the Critical Language Scholarship program had seen delays in their orientation schedule leading up to the summer. Furthermore, Worden has an instructor who is at ASU on a Fulbright scholarship. Worden worried that, if these federal programs are canceled or suspended for long, the University may have to stop offering certain courses too.
Worden’s instructor declined a request for comment.
Worden added that his connection between these delays and the funding freeze was mostly conjecture, and that since finalists for the 2025 scholarship were announced in mid-March, he is fairly confident the program will move forward as planned.
CLS semifinalists, check your email! Notifications for the 2025 CLS Program have been sent! 🎉 We applaud all applicants for their commitment to language learning! @ECAatState #SayYestoCLS #ExchangeOurWorld pic.twitter.com/gRkzQsSc4n
Meneses Requena also pointed out that since funding has been restored, Fulbright scholars have received their payments and been informed about the status of their delayed paperwork.
Mox said funding had likely been restored after a systematic, internal review into the importance of federal programs like Fulbright and Critical Language.
He added that the U.S. is not responsible for funding all Fulbright programs, but that other partner countries contribute to the scholarships’ grant money as well.
“I expect after there’s been time for review, the real value of these programs is evaluated and it’s clear that they do not run counter to the administration’s objectives, things will be fine,” Mox said.
Mox, Meneses Requena and Worden all believe that these federal scholarships have political as well as individual value.
Meneses Requena said that, while Mexican schools are good, they may not have the same capacity and faculty as U.S. schools do. For him, Fulbright was important for “professional scientific development.”
Worden said it is important for these programs to be funded by the federal government, as students may often not be able to have these international education opportunities without financial assistance.
“On a personal scale, it’s just an incredible experience, both learning the language — which it’s kind of obvious, the benefits that has — but also tangentially related skills that you develop by adjusting to a new culture and seeing the world through a different lens,” Worden said.
Worden found this to be especially valuable as an engineering major since being in another country allowed him to learn how to design and view the world in new ways.
“Programs like this are a win-win for everybody,” Worden said. “The federal government gets … soft power abroad and U.S. foreign policy initiatives. Also, a decent amount of people from these programs end up working for the State Department, so it’s a pipeline for that.”
Mox also said there is heavy bipartisan support for State Department scholarships in Congress, particularly as several of them were Fulbright scholars.
On a broader scale, he pointed out that these programs are opportunities for the U.S. to choose students who can make national advances, and who can leave a good impression of the U.S. on other countries.
Fulbright's Year in Review 💙 📰
This was a significant year for the Fulbright Program. Fulbright launched several new partnership programs to offer unique research opportunities in exciting fields. Fulbrighters continued to advance knowledge and address global challenges; many… pic.twitter.com/28A9duxMiM
“What if we promoted mutual understanding between nations and found opportunities for academic and artistic exchange, and if we understood one another?” Mox asked. “Isn’t it more likely that peace and goodwill would persist?”
Mox said these diplomatic objectives made it necessary for some Americans to be able to speak languages less commonly taught in schools, which is a focus of the Critical Language program.
“It is important for peace, diversity and global understanding,” Meneses Requena said. “It’s important for national security, the leadership of the countries that have these kinds of programs around the world. And those are important things for this administration.”
Meneses Requena also wanted to stay optimistic. He has faith that Congress will see the value of the Fulbright and Critical Language programs and that, after an administrative review, these funding freezes will have been a one-time incident.
“To demonstrate how important these programs are to people in positions of power, we need to show how incredibly popular they are, how important they are, and the best way to do that is to be confident and go forward,” Mox said.
Edited by Sophia Braccio, Abigail Beck and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at pkfung@asu.edu and follow @FungPippa on X.
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Pippa is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication with minors in political science and German. This is her third semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Blaze Radio and the Los Alamos National Lab.
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