IIE and Partners Lead Higher Education Response to Syria Crisis

As the Syrian crisis enters its fourth year, IIE and its partners around the world announce news and results related to the work of the IIE Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis. The Consortium provides emergency support to Syrian university students and professors, as they will be so urgently needed to help rebuild Syria.

While the world struggles to meet the basic needs of millions of Syrian refugees, IIE and its partners are making sure that higher education is not neglected. Launched in 2012 at the Clinton Global Initiative, the IIE Syria Consortium has expanded in 2014, with original partners IIE, Jusoor, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and the U.S. Department of State joined by the Global Platform for Syrian Students, Kaplan Test Prep International, and the University of California, Davis. 

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs has made a grant of $250,000 and the Carnegie Corporation of New York has made a grant of $500,000 to provide much-needed assistance to this effort, the latter in cooperation with the Global Platform for Syrian Students. These funds are enabling IIE and its partners to secure scholarships for Syrian students, offer grants to universities hosting Syrian students, and provide IIE Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) fellowships to six Syrian scholars. To date, IIE-SRF has provided fellowships to nearly 50 threatened Syrian scholars thanks to private donors including the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Hite Family Foundation.

Thanks to new partners and funding, the Consortium has mobilized and coordinated over $6 million in assistance and educational opportunities this year for Syrian students and scholars whose lives and academic work have been threatened due to the conflict.