Any issues with doing a masters degree abroad?
This blog post should be informative: https://news.clearancejobs.com/2017/03/14/will-study-abroad-keep-getting-security-clearance/
This was written for study-abroad considerations, aimed at undergraduates with aims for cleared jobs later. The difference in your situation is that you are already cleared. I assume that your clearance will move from āactiveā to ācurrentā when you stop your job for school abroad. In this case, you will likely need to engage with an FSO and will need to report the expected items (foreign contacts, any financial ties you developed, foreign job offers, etc) once you come back to cleared work. If your clearance remains active during this time, for whatever reason, you would pretty much do the same.
If you spend over 24 months with your clearance on ācurrentā, you will lose it and need to apply for clearance from step 1.
The amount of trouble that this causes will be strongly related to which country you are going to study in and who you associate with while you are there.
While itās cool that you might save $40k in tuition, you will have costs for travel and living and you will forgo your current salary as well as potentially risking your clearance. All of this needs to be taken into account when making a decision of this type.
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Concur Edā¦not to mention this could beā¦could beā¦run by the host nation Intelligence agency as a means of entrapping foreign students, developing contactsā¦and it would not have much impact in the US if our school systems and accreditation agencies did not recognize it as a valid Masterās Degree. That said, if working with a clearance is not really a big player in your future and you can afford to live on the economy going to schoolā¦it would be quite an adventure. But I would think it is just a ripe recruiting ground.
Visiting a foreign country, even a āhostileā nation, is one thing. But living in a foreign country, even a āfriendlyā nation, is another. Of course there is a continuum of concern, from living in Canada or the UK (for example) at one end, down to enrolling at the Kim Il-Sung State Polytechnic Institute.
I am trying to think how the ātwo year ruleā might apply here. That is, you leave a āclearedā position and usually have two years to be re-employed in another cleared job without too much trouble. But at the minimum, I think youād have to fill out an SF-86C to report any new info since your last investigation, and youād have to report studying in Canada (or Albania or whatever it is) and thatās where the process might slow to a crawl.
As far as the local services trying to recruit you, just keep track of names and numbers and donāt take any wooden nickels 
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or wooden yenā¦
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I think what you stand to gainā¦vs what you put at riskā¦changes the equation. Save money? Check. Have education recognized by a US Accreditation agency? Risk. Plus risk to clearance? Yeah I see that as raising flags, not insurmountable, but flags not worth raising.