It started with a problem we lived through
wheretostudyaway.io was born in Lisbon — a city that has seen its universities fill with international students over the past decade. We watched friends and colleagues navigate the study-abroad process up close: the excitement of acceptance letters, the frustration of rejected scholarship applications, and the expensive mistakes that came from choosing the wrong programme in the wrong country.
But we didn't start as observers. We started as international students ourselves. Members of our team have studied in five different countries — from undergraduate years in London to master's degrees in Berlin, from exchange semesters in Seoul to PhDs in Toronto. We've dealt with the application paperwork, the financial proof requirements, the agonising "is this the right university?" question at 2 a.m. We've paid education agents who pushed expensive programmes in countries that didn't fit our profiles, simply because they earned higher commissions there.
The gap we set out to fill
Here's what we discovered: the information you need to make a smart study-abroad decision exists. It's scattered across university websites in different languages, buried in scholarship portal databases, hidden behind expensive agency fees, or wrapped in marketing fluff by universities trying to fill seats and meet enrolment targets.
Nobody had put it all together in one place and built a tool that could actually match your specific academic profile — your nationality, field of study, degree level, budget, language skills, and career goals — against real programme requirements and scholarship criteria, and tell you plainly which options are realistic for you and which ones aren't.
So we built it.
What we actually do
We built an assessment engine that cross-references your academic profile against the admission requirements, tuition costs, scholarship criteria, and post-study work rights of programmes across 50+ countries. Not theoretical eligibility — practical eligibility. Can you actually get accepted, afford it, and build a career afterwards?
Our free assessment gives you a ranked list of your best-fit programmes and destinations. Our paid reports go deeper: specific university recommendations, scholarship matches you qualify for, realistic cost breakdowns, application timelines, and concrete next steps. Everything is written by people who've been through the process themselves, verified against official sources, and reviewed every semester to keep up with changing requirements and deadlines.
Between review cycles, some programmes may not reflect the very latest changes — universities update admission criteria, scholarships open and close, and governments adjust student visa rules without much notice. We're upfront about this: every programme in our database shows when it was last reviewed, and we always recommend verifying specifics with official university pages before applying.
We don't sugarcoat. If a popular university is a poor fit for your budget, we'll tell you. If a lesser-known programme in a country you hadn't considered is a stronger match, we'll make sure you see it.
What we are not
We're not an education agency. We don't submit university applications or represent you to any institution. We're not visa consultants. We're not university representatives or recruiters. We don't earn commissions from any university, language school, or accommodation provider.
Think of us as the research phase done right. The part that should come before you hire an agent, before you pay a non-refundable application fee, before you commit your savings to a programme that might not be the best use of your time and money.
From Lisbon to everywhere
What started in a flat in Alfama has grown into a platform used by students from over 60 countries. Our users include engineering students in Mumbai comparing Germany and Canada, medical graduates in Lagos exploring options in Eastern Europe, high schoolers in São Paulo weighing US community colleges against Portuguese universities, and working professionals in Manila looking at part-time master's programmes in the UK and Australia.
We cover study-abroad pathways across Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and beyond — because the question "where should I study?" doesn't respect borders, and neither do we.