The Border Studies Program (BSP) is a semester-long program based in Tucson, Arizona that consists of homestays, internships in grassroots and/or non-profit organizations and excursions as well as a rigorous academic curriculum. Immersed in the southern Arizona borderlands, BSP offers students hands-on experience in contemporary justice struggles and an expansive curriculum that valorizes grassroots knowledge and challenges students to understand and articulate the context and implications of their own positionalities.
Announcing NEW track:
Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Borderlands
Coming in fall semester 2024, the program will include a new program track in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Borderlands (in addition to the traditional track listed below).
BSP explores urgent contemporary topics that include:
- Transnational migration
- Neoliberal globalization
- The militarization of policing
- Struggles for environmental justice, ethnic studies and indigenous rights
- Language justice
- Community-building in diverse regions
- Organizing, activism, and movement building
In addition, the new track in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Borderlands also addresses:
- land and water use
- resource extraction
- climate change
- food justice
- traditional ecological knowledge
- grassroots and indigenous movements
Program Dates
*16 week semester-long program (including a break)
- Spring 2024: January 23 – May 5, 2024
- Fall 2024: August 20 – December 8, 2024
- Spring 2025: January 21 – May 4, 2025
Program Application Deadlines
- Fall 2024:
- Priority deadline: March 15, 2024
- Final deadline: May 1, 2024
- Spring 2024:
- Priority deadline: September 15, 2024
- Final deadline: October 15th, 2024
*Students interested in the spring program can apply by the March or April deadlines, and their admission will be prioritized.
Cost and Billing Information
The cost of the Border Studies Program will be announced in March of each year. Students are responsible for travel costs to and from the Program site, for costs of independent travel, for books and materials, for passport, visa and health costs, and for personal expenses.
Students or their home campuses will be billed by Earlham College. Students will inform the Earlham College Center for Global Education whether to bill them directly or to bill their home college.
For students paying for the program directly, the comprehensive program fee (starting in Fall 2023) is $26,020. This fee includes: all program tuition and fees, housing and most meals with a host family, a stipend for weekday lunches, all program travel and excursions costs, costs of supporting the field study (internship) placements, and a local transportation pass for Tucson. Not included are: travel to and from Tucson, funds for personal expenses and entertainment, and the cost of maintaining your health insurance.
For students whose colleges pay some but not all costs on their behalf, the fee breaks down as follows:
Tuition and fees (including excursions) | $21,520 |
Housing | $3,375 |
Meals stipend | $1,125 |
For more information and to apply:
- If you are an Earlham student, click here
- If you are a non- Earlham student, click here