To change the face of study abroad, educators need to embrace new strategies, from creating programs that appeal to underrepresented groups to emphasizing the real-world value of an overseas experience.
A session at the annual conference of the Association of International Education Administrators, which wrapped up here earlier this week, focused on the challenge of increasing diversity in study abroad. While the number of students going on academic programs overseas has tripled in the past two decades, that upward trajectory masks the lack of progress in getting a broader cross section of students to have an international experience. Racial and ethnic minorities, men, working adults, lower-income and first-generation college students, and those with disabilities—all are underrepresented abroad.
About 80 percent of all students who go overseas each year are white, said Anthony C. Ogden, director of education abroad at the University of Kentucky. More than half either didn’t receive any federal financial aid or didn’t even complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, in the first place. In fact, University of Iowa researchers found that students on financial aid are 11 percentage points less likely to study abroad than their peers, Mr. Ogden said.
One problem may be how proponents talk about an overseas-education experience. Students from poorer backgrounds or who are focused on their careers might not respond to marketing that underscores the cultural value of time abroad. “That’s a luxury,” Mr. Ogden said, suggesting that advisers talk about the benefits of international study in the workplace or graduate school. “If we start promoting the rhetoric of trips, tours, travel, then we’re our own worst enemy,” he said.
One participant, Alice Gail Bier, senior director of international education and global engagement at Brooklyn College, said colleges should stress the affordability of study abroad in their promotional materials. Another City University of New York campus, she said, spotlights the scholarships and grants available for overseas study on brochures and posters, taking the emphasis off destinations or specific programs. “It makes the focus the fact that you can afford to go,” she said.
North Carolina A&T State University invests time in helping students apply for funds to finance their overseas study, says Minnie Battle Mayes, director of the office of international programs. The university holds scholarship-writing workshops, and study-abroad advisers are available to review applications, she said. It’s paid off—North Carolina A&T ranks in the top 20 in the number of students awarded the competitive Gilman scholarship, a federal program that provides study-abroad money to Pell Grant recipients, particularly minority students.
Ms. Mayes, a panelist, recommends working with faculty members, who can encourage their students to go overseas. She pairs professors with international experience with colleagues who have done little work abroad to lead overseas programs. A summer program to Malawi could have as many faculty participants as students, she said, but the hope is that professors who go abroad will turn around and develop their own international courses.
Mr. Ogden said his doctoral research suggests that overseas trips that are embedded in academic courses are particularly successful in encouraging broad participation. Men, low-income students, and those not of traditional college age are all more likely to go abroad on short-term programs that are part of semester-long courses, he found.
Educators have historically favored semester- or yearlong study abroad, arguing that long-term immersion has the greatest impact on students’ understanding and comfort with other cultures. But if advocates want to diversify overseas education, they may have to offer more options to appeal to students who can’t go abroad for long periods of time due to cost or work or family commitments, Mr. Ogden said.
Speakers also encouraged the audience to reach out to other on-campus groups, such as centers for teaching and learning, institutional researchers, and chief diversity officers. International educators at the University of Washington began to work with the institution’s office of minority affairs several years ago, to encourage advisers to talk about study-abroad options with students. The relationship has blossomed, and faculty and staff members from minority affairs have begun leading their own programs overseas, with support from the international office, said Peter Moran, director of international programs and exchanges.
It’s never too early to begin outreach, said Douglas Reardon, director of the office of international programs at Coppin State University, in Baltimore. Coppin State works with local inner-city schools to begin getting students to think globally. The university has set up a pen-pal program to connect elementary- and middle-school students to classes in South Africa and has even arranged for some students to travel there. It also has convinced a nearby high school to add world geography and Advanced Placement world history to its curriculum.
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