The business (problem) of study abroad

I know I don't actually post all that often, but I'm trying to rectify that. The truth is that I'm too busy-- really! Read Bob's description of his average day, and then compare it to mine:

I leave the house at about 8:45, to arrive at school by 9:20 ("on time" in Japan means 10 minutes early.) The morning preschool classes begin at 10 and last till 2 (of course, lunch and a daily visit to the park are included; I'm not lecturing 3-year-olds for 4 hours.) On two weekdays, I have planning time in the afternoon; the other two weekdays I teach a 2-hour afterschool class for kids who go to Japanese elementary school. On Saturdays the schedule is flipped: I get to plan in the morning, and teach a 4-hour intensive English class in the afternoon. Add "parent comment" time to all these classes and I don't exactly have as much down time as Bob does. All that will change, of course, when he gets a new school in August, but until then he's got about 7 hours of teaching per week, and I've got 24.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of articles I found recently. The first is NYTimes article from last August, about an inquiry into the study abroad industry. It works like this: Schools can run their own programs in foreign countries, have exchange agreements with institutions abroad, or partner with a private company that runs similar programs. As far as I can tell, every university has all 3 of these options available. The problem with the private companies, though, is that they are too focused on the bottom line. In August 2007, some of these providers were caught bribing universities to get kids to sign up for their programs-- you can read the article here.

I understand why colleges use these companies: it's just too hard for every school to develop their own programs, or to partner with other schools. With thousands of institutions of higher education, it's just not possible. There isn't enough money, faculty, or time-- relationships between schools and local professors can take years to develop. The demand is increasing, too: over 200,000 students studied abroad in 2004-5, which is more than double from a decade ago. The Lincoln Commission just released a report stating its goal of sending 1 million American students abroad within 10 years. So schools turn to these companies to diversify their offerings. The problem with these companies is that they are too expensive and too sheltering.

The first part is easy to explain: third-party providers can, for example, provide a program that places students at a foreign university. However, directly enrolling in a foreign university often costs less, much less, than U.S. tuition. Exchange programs- where two students from different countries trade places- also have this problem. A friend of mine who studied in France told me she enjoyed her program, but was frustrated by the fact that she was paying a few thousand dollars (her normal UVA tuition) to be there, and her French classmates were sitting in the lecture halls for free. The private programs, however, usually cost upwards of $10,000 per semester, even $20,000-- and that's not including airfare. Few scholarships are available, so most of the kids who enroll in these programs are wealthy. Universities exacerbate this problem, too-- read the article above!

So the group of students on one of these programs is going to look pretty homogenous: most- if not all- have wealthy parents, and statistically speaking, they are likely to be white, female, liberal arts majors, college juniors, studying for 1 semester in Western Europe. But I'll get into that stuff another time. Essentially, students may be spending their semester with Americans who are very similar to them, so they won't have to step out of their comfort zone. Companies advertise their programs by offering "personal pre-departure advisors," and group field trips, which exclude the local student population. Depending on the program, some are not integrated into any foreign university, which is called an "island program." Americans take classes with Americans, study only in English, and live with Americans. I think the reasoning here is "Let's make our program sound exciting yet easy, not too different from an American campus, and lots of students will sign up!" Which equals lots of $$$. If a program is led by experienced, passionate faculty, has comprehensive student support services, and most importantly, has depth, then an private program may be the best fit for a student. But if programs are developed with attention to quantity and the bottom line, with little attention paid to quality- and this goes for university programs too, if they are developed poorly- those 1 million kids will have experiences closer to this. It's an article from the Onion, but it accurately captures aspects of the American college overseas experience.

When abroad, traditional learning often takes a backseat to experiential learning, but when done poorly, experience can be (according to Homer Simpson) "just a bunch of stuff that happened." If students remain in the "American bubble" the whole time and are never forced to step outside their comfort zone, they're not experiencing anything new at all.

by Katie