"You pay only quarterly interest on the educational loan during your study period"

With the Indian market booming, a management degree has become the most sought after post-graduate degree in the country. Today, we have millions of MBA aspirants taking the various management entrance tests to get into a B-school of their dreams. But, doing well on these tests and the GD/PI rounds thereafter is not enough to get into a B-school of one’s choice. An Indian MBA programme today costs anywhere between 2.5 and 4 lakhs and some management degrees even cost about 10 to 17 lakhs. And, if the dream college is a premier B-school abroad, the money required to finance the degree is phenomenal. Add to that the living expenses, money for books, laptop and so on… Hence, the question “How do I pay my MBA fees?” But, today MONEY IS NOT A CONSTRAINT FOR THE DESERVING. In fact, most premier institutes across the world, including the IIMs and Harvard, state that no student will be deprived of quality education on the grounds of lack of finance. Today, there are many financing options available for such candidates.

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"Apply for as many scholarships as possible"

Financing an MBA is a heavy investment. Not all of us have the financial resources required to go to a good B–School. While taking a student loan helps us to sleep easy through B–School, it has to be paid back. Scholarships, on the other hand, put financial worries to rest to a large extent. Hence, it is essential to apply for a scholarship. In fact, even if you have arranged for the necessary funds to attend a B–School, it wouldn’t hurt to apply for a scholarship.

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"Each student visa applicant must convince the Consular Officer that he intends to return to his home in India after the period of study"

“Carta Visa” was the early Latin word for what we call VISA nowadays. It roughly means that this particular document is thoroughly ‘seen’. So it is a “Document” issued by a country, by virtue of which a person can formally request permission to enter a country for a specific period of time, it also defines the purpose of the visit. Simply put, a visa is a certificate that is put into your passport or travel document by an Entry Clearance Officer, or some such authority. The visa gives you permission to enter the country, for the specified duration and for the specific purpose. As students who are looking for further studies abroad, you would be encountering the various formalities, and at times in comprehensible forms and procedures. As this article covers five destinations for further studies, some common pattern do seem to emerge. Typically all these countries would want you to have first obtained an admission in their colleges, before you can enter the country. The next thing is, they want to be sure of your financial ability to sustain your stay and pay for your studies. Thirdly, they want to be sure that you are not a potential immigrant to their country by false means. There are some finer variations (e.g. Singapore and Australia) to these, but by and large, this is the pattern. Of course, the recent ‘Home land Securities Act, has put in some more forms and procedures in the case of the USA. So let’s proceed to see the basic process in place and an idea of what you would need, if you were to apply for a visa for further studies to these countries.

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