Efforts to increase study abroad rates amongst American students achieves marginal successes, but pales in comparison to European students.
A few UCF students surmise the culprit behind our notoriously low study abroad rates in comparison to students from western European countries boils down to economic circumstances.
“Well, traveling and studying abroad is more, like, accessible to them. The plane tickets still cost roughly the same, sure, but they’re not going into as much debt as we are for their education so they have more spare money in their pocket to travel,” said Sarah Tilly, a graduate student majoring in communication sciences and disorders.
A variety of statistical reports and studies consistently demonstrate that American students tend to travel significantly less than their Western European counterparts. Despite nationwide attempts to boost participation of U.S students studying abroad, year-to-year increases have remained modest.
“I also think they [American students] prefer to work in the summer and save up rather than indulge in a study abroad program and add to their student loan debt. If the government really want us to go study abroad more then they should follow Europe’s example and actually make college tuition more affordable,” Tilly said.
According to a 2012 press release by the Institute of International Education, the rates have been steadily growing, but still remain negligible if the overall amount of American students enrolled in higher education institutions is taken into account.
“However, American students studying abroad still represent a small proportion of total enrollment in U.S. higher education. About 14 percent of American students receiving Bachelor degrees this past year have studied abroad at some point during their undergraduate programs, while only one percent of U.S. students are studying abroad during a single academic year (273,996 out of the more than 20 million students enrolled in U.S. higher education),” the press release from the IIE reported.
Chris Cook, a coordinator of academic advising, said the Office of International Studies has expanded options for study abroad programs in order to cater to more student majors. They also offer a variety of scholarships to students, many of which often go unclaimed due to lack of applicants.
“There’s a lot of scholarships out there. Our website lists about four pages of different scholarships. Our office alone gives out $500 to $1000 every summer for short term programs, and we give out approximately $30,000 per summer,” said Cook.
Although data show low study abroad rates among American students, the OIS at UCF are not finding it difficult to find students to fill their programs.
“Most years one to two programs get closed out of 30, so we’re not really struggling to find students. Some programs do better than others, especially the short terms programs which seem to be the most popular,” Cook said.
Sarah Taylor, a senior majoring in Social Work, said she believes the government needs to encourage students to study abroad by offering monetary incentives and alternate funding.
“I think a good method would be to reach out to local businesses that hire students, like agencies and restaurants, and make them provide scholarships for their student employees who want to study abroad. I don’t know, its just an idea, but they really should make study abroad programs more affordable, and maybe finally raising the minimum wage would be really helpful,” Taylor said.
Western Europe boasts various incentive programs that accommodates students who wish to study abroad. One such program allows students from countries that are part of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to obtain “maintenance grants” from their country of origin for a certain amount of years even if they study abroad at foreign universities.
Another such incentive is the Bologna Agreement, signed by 47 countries, which was implemented to increase ease of transfer and reduce academic inconvenience. It standardizes Bachelor and Master degree programs and considers the degree offerings across all the signatory countries as equivalent.
Chelsea Piner, a student majoring in environmental studies, said she thinks the biggest issues that weigh down study abroad rates is the lack of government funding for such programs, the lack of distribution of tax money toward higher education, and the fact that pell grants can only be received for credits taken at an American university.
“European students get pretty cheap tuition, and I think some are even free. The education budget here on the other hand is usually one of the first things to get cut. We seem to be paying all this tax money, and so do countries in Europe I guess, but the difference is that we’re certainly not seeing any of it,” Piner said.
Despite the economic hardships and challenges American students face when attempting to study in a foreign country, study abroad advisor, Maureen Waked, said she would advise students to take into consideration that traveling will be much harder to do once you’ve begun your career.
“In 10 years, or five years from now once you’ve graduated and you’re working, will you have regretted not doing something that you’ve always wanted to do? I think it would be worth it, maybe, to take out a loan to go study abroad because I’ve seen students do that and come back and say ‘oh I’m so glad that I did that because it was one of the best experiences of my life,'” “Waked said.
“And I mean, they should take the opportunity because once you graduate and you start working, it’s hard to get away.”
