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Stanford Business magazine

 

Spreadsheet

Student Loan Aid in Developing Countries

Financing an MBA education is tough, but for many international students from developing nations, paying back educational loans can be crippling. Earning enough to keep up with payments may mean not going back home where one’s expertise can make a real difference.

But a new program is changing that. As the first awardee of the School’s new International Loan Forgiveness Program, Maxim Melnikov, MBA ’06, has been able to switch from an investment career to an operational role managing newspaper and magazine distribution enterprises in Moscow, the first step toward his goal of helping stimulate the Russian economy by creating his own companies.

The GSB International Loan Forgiveness Program, launched in fall 2006, “is part of the School’s increased interest in having a greater positive influence abroad,” explains Colleen MacDonald, director of financial aid, who with Sharon Marine, director of campaign giving for the School, and other administrators worked with donor Peter Seldin, MBA ’80, to create a program modeled after the School’s successful Nonprofit/Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Eligible graduates may be awarded up to $7,500 each year for three years after graduation.

During the pilot phase, non-U.S. graduates from the classes of 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 can apply—as long as they have chosen to work in what the World Bank classifies as low-, lower-middle-, or upper-middle-income countries. Until the program takes hold, special loan forgiveness awards have been extended to international students in classes not covered by the new program: Mizmun Kusairi, MBA ’05, in Malaysia; and Bryan Droznes, MBA ’05, and Juan Meryn, MBA ’04, both in Argentina.