External Scholarships
The Iranian Scholarship Foundation would like to support all exceptional Iranian-American students, however, due to limited resources we have chosen to focus on funding undergraduate studies. In recent years, several Iranian-American philanthropists have set up scholarship funds to help outstanding, financially constrained Iranian or Iranian-American students pursue higher education in the United States. Thanks to the generosity of Iranian-American philanthropists, increasing numbers of talented students are given the opportunity to pursue their academic goals. Here are a few of these organizations:
Bita Daryabari Scholarship for Women in Economics
This scholarship established by the founder and president of Unique Zan Foundation, Bita Daryabari, offers a grant of up to $30,000 per academic year to Persian-speaking women who have been admitted to economics PhD programs in one of twenty highly respected institutions in the U.S. to cover tuition, fees, books, and materials.
The Houtan Foundation
In order to spread awareness of Iran and its rich heritage, the Houtan Scholarship Foundation offers awards of up to $2,500 per semester to students in graduate programs. The award is offered to students from all origins with an active interest in promoting Iran’s heritage and culture. In order to apply, the applicant must have a working knowledge of Persian and distinguished academic performance. Financial need will be a factor in award consideration.
Iranian-American Scholarship Fund
Founded in 1997, the Iranian-American Scholarship Fund (IASF) started off as a small group of philanthropists in San Diego, California; they now celebrate over a decade of service to the Iranian-American community with over 75 scholarships awarded to date. An independent, non-profit organization, IASF accepts applications from Iranian-American undergraduate (2nd year and above) and graduate (Masters) students demonstrating financial need and attending an accredited U.S. educational institution.
Momeni Foundation
Established in 1998, the Momeni Family Foundation provides scholarships to graduating high school students and current college students of all levels regardless of citizenship or country of residency. The foundation grants ten scholarships for amounts of $500 to $1000 each to college bound seniors and current Iranian American students at undergraduate, graduate and PhD levels regardless of country of residency. Three additional scholarships are awarded annually to graduating high school seniors who are citizens or permanent residents of United States.
Society of Iranian-American Women for Education (SIAWE)
SIAWE provides scholarships to college or university students in Texas to enhance their educational opportunities. The scholarship is awarded annually to a number of students based on availability of funds and the quality of the applicant pool. The scholarship recipients do not receive any cash rewards from SIAWE; instead the award money is credited to the students’ account at their enrolling school to be used toward their tuition and books for the fall and spring semesters. At the end of each academic year any unused scholarship funding is returned to SIAWE to be redistributed into the scholarship fund for future candidates.