Negative repercussions of leaving Fulbright early?

January 3, 2008 12:31 PM

Fulbright Filter: Are there any negative repercussions of leaving one's student Fulbright 10-month period a few months early?

How does this work? Do they stop sending you the money? Are you forever on a blacklist for grants?

posted by anonymous to education (4 comments total)

I'm sorry, I don't know all the details but... a friend of mine just left his Fulbright early and while I don't know if he had to pay back the money, I do know that they stopped giving him money immediately. He did want to continue working on the "subject" of his Fulbright, but, for medical reasons, needed to finish up his last 2-3 months in a different location. His sponsor (or whatever it's called) was a real stickler for the rules and said if he left, he was cut off -- no discussion.

I did get the impression that the sponsor person has a lot to do with how the whole situation is resolved, so that may be something for you to consider.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 1:18 PM on January 3, 2008

How does this work? Do they stop sending you the money? Are you forever on a blacklist for grants?

I have two very good friends who each did this (I think it is actually quite common). First, I think that each country Fulbright program has some discretion about how to handle each situation, so know that there may be big differences in how each case is handled. But, for my friends, all that happened was that they sent a letter saying "sorry, I have to go home for reason X." Their funding was cut off, and they had to repay anything that had already been given to them for the upcoming months. (That is, if the Fulbright grant was $15,000, disbursed in two payments of $7,500, and you quit in the 8th month, you would have to give back whatever the prorated amount would be for the next 2 months.) Both went on to get other grants, and appear to be having fine academic careers. I asked one about this the other year, and he said that he just puts the Fulbright on his resume, without giving details on just when he went home.

I can't imagine anyone ever calling up the in-country Fulbright administrator and asking about the specifics of your time there. People leave early, stay longer, spend their entire 10 months drunk, and it all ends up as the same one sentence on their CVs.
posted by Forktine at 1:53 PM on January 3, 2008

I lost a Fulbright one year because a close family member died and I missed two language labs. The professor opted to drop my grade by one letter for every missed lab, resulting in me getting a C. I tried to appeal it to no avail; it did not affect my other scholarships, or future financial aid when I went to work on my Master's. So, yeah, your money will end immediately, you will have to pay back the money sooner. I had to start paying mine back while I was still in school, which was difficult. Of course this was in 1993, so YMMV.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:42 PM on January 3, 2008

Having been involved with a few flavors of grantmaking as an adjudicator/panelist, I can reassure you there's no such thing as a global blacklist for grantseeking. There's always some small-world syndrome (grantmakers talking to one another informally about problem recipients), but -- especially in a program as large-scale as Fulbright -- you'd have to do something seriously, memorably bad to cause any grapevine trouble for yourself. As long as the words "international incident" don't get etched into somebody's brain you are fine.

For safety into the future, you could list the actual dates on your cv/resume (list the actual 7-month period you were there, not the 10-month period for which you were originally funded). I always encourage people to be fastidiously honest with details, because in rare cases any detail might be checked out.
posted by allterrainbrain at 12:42 AM on January 4, 2008