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Policy Brief vol.2 issue.5
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May 8, 2007 Vol. 2 Issue 5
An opinion article by Victor C. Johnson, associate executive director for public policy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, on the importance of the Simon Study Abroad Act One of our greatest responsibilities as a society is to ensure that the next generation of Americans is prepared for life and leadership in the 21st century. And one thing is certain: the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow will be undeniably global in nature. The global economy has placed increasing demands on our ability to compete and innovate on an international playing field. Conflict and unrest around the world require the best of our capacity to understand, engage and communicate, in languages and cultural contexts well beyond our own. Collaboration with the best international talent is imperative to our continued leadership in scientific, medical, and technological research and innovation. And America’s ability to exercise wise, constructive leadership depends on our ability to both hear what the world is saying and communicate our own perspective clearly. The national interest in preparing Americans with international skills and knowledge could not be more clear. An excellent and proven way to hone cross-cultural skills, learn a foreign language, and develop expertise in another part of the world is to study abroad. Studies and polls show that America’s college students are highly interested in learning about the world, and that they understand the implications of the global environment into which they will graduate. Americans as a whole strongly support the idea that study abroad should be part of the preparation of our college students. A National Liability – Few Students Study Abroad Yet statistics show that only 1 percent of U.S. undergraduates ever study for credit in another country during college. Most of those who do head to Europe. Few are minorities. Sometimes cost is a major factor in these low participation rates, but more often, barriers at the institutional level – curricula that are too tightly sequenced; programming that lacks the flexibility to accommodate a broader spectrum of students; not enough faculty or leadership involvement in pushing study abroad – make the biggest difference. The result is that far too many American students today graduate from college without having had the experience of living and studying in another country. Too few of them have gained the global competency, cross-cultural sensitivity, and foreign language skills that they will need – and which our country so urgently needs them to possess. Revolutionizing Study Abroad This must change. High-quality study abroad should be an integral part of the education of our college students, and study-abroad fields, destinations, and participants must become much more diverse. The good news is that increasing numbers of college leaders across the country recognize the need to better prepare tomorrow’s diplomats, business leaders, educators and generals, and they have taken innovative steps to increase study-abroad participation. In order to revolutionize study abroad – to open its doors to the widest spectrum of American students, and to extend its reach into every region of the world – higher education, government, and the private sector must work together to build on the good work of these leaders. How to Meet this National Need How do we get there? The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, introduced in both houses of Congress earlier this year, offers a vision that can be achieved through such a partnership. That vision – first articulated by the late Senator Paul Simon – is that in ten years’ time, one million American students, demographically representative of the nation’s undergraduate population, will study abroad each year for credit, in quality programs, in diverse regions of the world. This legislation would make seed money available to higher-education institutions that are prepared to take concrete steps to remove campus-based barriers to study abroad and to use the grant money to leverage other sources of support. Direct scholarships alone won’t get one million Americans studying abroad—nor would it be affordable—but a relatively modest amount of federal support, properly managed and creatively deployed, can motivate the necessary institutional changes, energize other financial support, and achieve the goal. We must democratize study abroad and make the international preparedness of our citizens a national priority. We urge Congress to act quickly to pass and fund the Simon Study Abroad Act. With over 9,000 members NAFSA is the world's largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education. NAFSA seeks to increase awareness of and support for international education and exchanges in higher education and government, believing that citizens with international experience and global awareness are crucial to U.S. leadership, competitiveness, and security. We welcome your feedback about this publication. Please email: govrel[at]nafsa.org
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