Comments on: 1% of American Students Study Abroad

By: Matt S.

Matt S. — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:46:35 +0000

The statistics that we’ve found pubilshed are that 55% of US college students polled say that they are interested in and at some point would like to study abroad. And only 5% of those US college students do end up studying abroad. Multiply the two and this comes out to 2.75% of all students.

The main reasons most don’t go, as has been stated, is funding. Some people actually decide to skip studying abroad and instead go traveling abroad for several months after graduation, which can be a low cost alternative……

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By: Tim Patterson

Tim Patterson — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:27:54 +0000

Great news – study abroad is such a powerful educational experience for high-school and college students.

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By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:29:35 +0000

I wish I could have studied abroad while in school. I’m still in school right now, but I only have one semester left, and finances are too tight to try it out. Too bad this wasn’t done sooner. I definitely would have taken the opportunity.

But who knows. I may end up going to graduate school, so the opportunity may just come my way.

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By: Eva

Eva — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:12:43 +0000

I’m not sure how unusual my undergrad (Dal) was among Canadian schools, but study abroad was pretty common there. I had friends who went everywhere from Senegal to Cuba to New Zealand to Malta, Malaysia, Swaziland, and on and on.

There’s a big “but” coming though: there were extra costs associated with a semester or a year of study abroad, and an academic price to pay too — a full year of study abroad usually meant extending your degree to five years, because most often your study abroad credits were useless as far as prereqs for your specific program went. A one semester study abroad was tricky too because it made it impossible to take any year-long prereqs that year. So, to put it delicately, the kids that went on study abroad often a) didn’t have student loans to worry about, and b) weren’t necessarily too concerned about their academics. (The exception was the international development crowd.)

The long lead-up, planning-wise, hampers things too. For myself, I didn’t make plans (late in first year or early second year) to go abroad in third year because I was a classics major and my full-year language prereqs (Greek and Latin) wouldn’t allow it. But by the time third year rolled around, I’d switched to African History. So a study abroad experience in Africa would have been ideal…

It’s certainly an imperfect system! It’s encouraging to hear it’s being taken seriously now in the US.

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By: Carlo

Carlo — Sun, 17 May 2009 07:31:22 +0000

I wonder what the percentage is for Canadians…when I finished highschool I don’t remember even hearing about this as an option, so it’s definitely something that needs to be promoted more. Of course, that was quite some time ago now, maybe things are different?

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By: Julie Schwietert

Julie Schwietert — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:32:44 +0000

Good points, everyone! And Troy, yes, the number of Americans with passports is quite low.

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By: Hal

Hal — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:13:41 +0000

I agree that there are a lot of changes needed in all levels of America’s education system, but why not make study-abroad promotion one of them? The figure that’s the basis for this article is kind of appalling. I would have guessed 15-20%.

ps julie – i had no trouble with the title

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By: Troy

Troy — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:59:56 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong but, admittedly while not as shockingly low, isn’t the number of Americans with passports also very low? Could be correlated?

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By: Debi G

Debi G — Sat, 16 May 2009 12:22:01 +0000

I don’t find the stats surprising at all, but very disappointing! Studying abroad was one of the best things that I have ever done and now I look to teach abroad. I think we would have less international conflicts if we all spent more time visiting other countries and learning other cultures, languages, traditions and histories. I support this bill!

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By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:46:05 +0000

I’m no math genie, but I don’t think “1% of American Students Study Abroad” (in the title) is the same as “1% of students from the US study abroad EACH YEAR.” The title indicates only 1% of American students EVER study abroad. I would bet that percentage is substantially higher than 1%.

Irregardless, my guess is that finances plays a large part. I would guess awareness of the mechanics of such programs has something to do with it as well. When I was in undergrad, I didn’t have a CLUE about what was going on. With my adviser being responsible for who knows how many students, I’m sure his telling me about any study abroad programs was not a top priority…so long as I enrolled in classes: mission accomplished. And like any other thing like this in school, studying abroad requires a certain amount of effort and paperwork, which is about as much fun as writing resumes and cover letters. It sucks. My guess is that very few students–who are suited for studying abroad–are getting turned away from study abroad programs due to limited space.

I also don’t think study abroad is necessarily a Congressional concern. How ’bout fix secondary education first? Greater “diversity” in high school graduates may inherently increase diversity of all kinds of higher education programs.

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