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Do not let budget limitations stop you from reaching your potential. Let AFIO offset some of your education costs. Applicants do not need to be current members of AFIO. All winners will be granted a 1-year honorary membership to AFIO.
To be awarded to rising seniors who are pursuing an undergraduate degree with demonstrated interest in becoming employed within the U.S. Intelligence Community, such as relevant internships, study abroad experience, advanced language study, or research work.
To be awarded to graduate students focused on national security issues who are pursuing degrees in areas such as international relations, security policy, or intelligence studies and who are currently serving in the U.S. Government or have intention to do so.
This scholarship is awarded in honor of Edmund W. Kelly, a career officer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 42 years, who served his country in Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The scholarship is awarded to an outstanding candidate focused on national security issues who is pursuing a degree in areas such as international relations, security policy, or intelligence studies and who is currently serving in the U.S. Government or has intention to do so.
This scholarship is awarded in honor of John A. Rizzo, who spent many years as deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of the CIA. His courage, commitment to intelligence under law and sense of humor shine through his memoir, Company Man, Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA. The scholarship is awarded to an outstanding candidate focused on national security issues who is pursuing a degree in areas such as international relations, security policy, or intelligence studies and who is currently serving in the U.S. Government or has intention to do so.
AFIO offers undergraduate and graduate scholarships. To be considered, you must indicate whether you are applying for an undergraduate or graduate scholarship. For Undergraduate scholarships, applicants must be entering their senior year of college in the fall of 2025.For Graduate scholarships, applications must be submitted no earlier than your senior undergraduate year of college and no later than your second year of graduate school studies.
Applicants must provide via this online form the following SEVEN items. Any of these formats for your attachments are acceptable: PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, JPG, TIF, RTF, ODT, including common archive files - e.g., ZIP, ZIPX. Do not send .dat or .htm files. Verify your attachments open to be certain they are valid files and not empty shortcut files. Keep attachments per email under 15 MB.
- Cover Letter: explaining your need for scholarship, your career goals, your views of U.S. world standing and role U.S. intelligence community should play.
- Resume to include:
- Current mailing address (we will verify with post office)
- Place and date of birth
- Colleges you have attended
- College you expect to attend in fall of 2025
- Experience
- Extra-curricular activities
- A copy of your academic transcript - need not be original or "official"
- One recommendation (have person send to us by email to scholarships@afio.com)
- Recent photograph. Image should show full face - sitting, standing, or portrait only. JPG, TIF, GIF, PDF, other major graphic image formats acceptable.
- Indicate whether you are applying for an UNDERGRADUATE or GRADUATE scholarship.
- Name of college or university you will be attending in 2025-2026 and your intended course of study (your declared 'major' or 'area of concentration').
Please assemble all parts of your application package and send them to ususing the online form below. If you are missing any part of the package your application will not be considered.
Recommendations and/or transcripts coming from institutions or advisors that cannot be sent electronically can be mailed to us by U.S. Mail to our address: AFIO Scholarships, 220 Spring St Ste 220, Herndon, VA 20170 or emailed to scholarships@afio.com.
All materials by applicants for 2025-2026 should be sent via our online form by midnight 1 June 2025. No applications will be accepted after midnight 1 June 2025.
All applicants must be U.S. citizens. Also, even if you are a U.S. citizen, no scholarship will be awarded to students attending foreign universities (study abroad is eligible, if administered by a U.S. school), or schools not U.S.-accredited, nor to law, medical, or business schools (foreign or domestic).
Students intending to study in schools of engineering, science, technology and/or show extensive foreign language mastery and/or area knowledge in Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hausa and other sub-Saharan African languages, Hebrew, Punjabi, Somali, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu are strongly encouraged to apply.
Applicants are evaluated on merit, character, academic commitment, relevance of studies to national security interests, and career ambitions. All applicants are expected to have a GPA of 3.0 or higher to be considered for these scholarships.
Applications are evaluated by a special AFIO committee. Decisions are final.
Tuition grants will be paid directly to the Bursar/Registrar of the University concerned - under NO circumstances are payments sent directly to awardees or non-bursar third parties.
Questions? Contact us at scholarships@afio.com