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TRAVEL BLOG

8.8.06

Number of U.S. Students Studying Abroad Triples

About 175,000 students earned college credit abroad in the 2003-2004 school year, triple the number from 20 years before, according to a story in today’s Washington Post. The Post emphasizes the local angle. Study abroad programs are particularly popular in the Washington D.C. area “where so many students come to study international affairs,” and one local college, as we mentioned here previously, requires study abroad in order to graduate. But writer Susan Kinzie points out that it’s not only a local phenomenon.

The Institute of International Education, which collects data on study abroad, doesn’t track whether students are going overseas multiple times. But experts said, anecdotally, that they are seeing more multiple excursions than ever, now that study abroad has gotten easier to do and less likely to be thought of as an extra or a luxury.

Business and education have become so global that “now it’s like, ‘Where is your study abroad experience?’” said Rebecca Brown, director of the International Studies Office at U-Va.

Most students study in the UK, but according to Kinzie, students these days “are more willing to venture beyond drinking Foster’s on the beaches of Australia to study in Africa, China, Latin America.”

Related on World Hum:
* Nicholas Kristof’s Modest Proposal: Students Should Earn Credits for Travel

Posted by Michael Yessis • 8.8.06
Categories: Weblog • Global Village