Assistance program
Educational and Cultural Exchange Programs Appropriation Overseas Grants
$489.9 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Bureau of Educational and Cultural, State, Department of
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements;Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 19.022
- What it does
- To provide assistance awards by U.S. diplomatic missions abroad made directly to eligible organizations in the United States using funds appropriated to and authorized by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) for the purpose of supporting international exchanges that address issues of mutual interest to the United States and other countries, consistent with the program criteria established in the Department’s annual appropriation. As authorized by the Fulbright-Hays Act, ECA seeks to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by means of educational and cultural exchange; to strengthen the ties which unite us with other nations by demonstrating the educational and cultural interests, developments, and achievements of the people of the United States and other nations, and the contributions being made toward a peaceful and more fruitful life for people throughout the world; to promote international cooperation for educational and cultural advancement; and thus to assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic, and peaceful relations between the United States and the other countries of the world.".
- Who benefits
- Beneficiaries include individuals selected for participation in the project, educational institutions, and Americans and people of other countries.
- Who applies
- Projects must support the development of mutual understanding between the United States and other countries in any area of importance to U.S. interests in those countries.
- Authorized by
- The Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (Fulbright-Hays Act), as amended
- Program site
- http://exchanges.state.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Grants
$79.4M
16%
Insurance
$9.0K
<1%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments