The study-abroad office at Tufts University is not taking any chances and will be paying the full cost of any trips its staff members take to overseas study locations. Up until now, the university has allowed its foreign-study adviser, Sally O’Leary, to take trips subsidized by independent vendors that provide study-abroad programs to Tufts students.
“It’s to avoid the appearance of impropriety,” Sheila P. Bayne, associate dean for programs abroad, said of the policy change. “Obviously, we haven’t been influenced by these trips.”
Traditionally, it has been fairly common for independent companies to pay partial or total travel costs for university employees who visit overseas-study sites. That practice, however, was called into question last month when the New York State attorney general’s office issued subpoenas to a handful of colleges and independent study-abroad companies.
Representatives for Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general, said they were looking into whether those trips, and other arrangements between colleges and study-abroad companies, unfairly influenced and limited the overseas-education options available to students. Mr. Cuomo’s effort follows a similar investigation into the student-loan industry, which has uncovered numerous arrangements between loan providers and colleges that benefited both partners while limiting students’ choices.
Since the investigation of arrangements with study-abroad companies began, numerous colleges have defended their subsidized travel as legitimate business-related trips that help to ensure the safety and quality of programs their students attend in foreign countries.
At Tufts, Ms. Bayne said, her office had already offered students numerous program options, including direct enrollment in foreign universities. Furthermore, she said, her office did not receive any cash bonuses from independent providers, and would maintain its partnerships with those companies.
Thomas S. McGurty, Tufts’s treasurer and vice president for finance, said there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the study-abroad office. He decided to discontinue company-paid travel arrangements, he said, as part of a new business-conduct policy he wrote for the university. That policy was drafted in response to Mr. Cuomo’s and other state and federal student-loan investigations.
“We’ve been really silent on the issue of these relationships and felt we needed to specifically provide guidance to everyone at the university,” said Mr. McGurty. “With the benefit of hindsight and in light of these investigations, it is just easier to avoid these trips altogether.”