Top 20 Baccalaureate Colleges for Study Abroad Participation

MarathonMan88
Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:14:54 +0000

Maybe the numbers are being manipulated, but I think it’s less sinister. I’m not holding any brief for the IIE or its figures, but here’s the way I understand it:

The IIE, the institute that compiles this data, has an institutional formula that they ask colleges to use. Colleges comply, but they also use a more conservative formula in their own public reporting. [And Papa Chicken’s post shows this neatly.]

Basically, the public figures that (principaled) colleges post on their web sites answer the intuitive question: “how many of your students study abroad by the time they graduate?” The figures released by the IIE address a slightly different question. The question they’re examining boils down to “how many of your students had any kind of foreign study experience last year”? The confusing thing is that they ask schools to report that number as a percentage of the graduating class not as a percentage of the total student body. (My guess is that the methodology dates from the days when semester abroad and study abroad overlapped much more than they do now.)

I drilled down a bit in their website, and here’s one of the most interesting stats–one that hammers home one of intereestedad’s points:



Open Doors 2006 data continue to show that the largest growth area is short-term study. The majority (56%) of U.S. students elected summer, January term, and other programs of less than one semester. These short-term programs have played an important role in increasing the popularity of study abroad, offering flexible international study opportunities to students who might otherwise be unable to participate in traditional programs. The “semester abroad” model now attracts 38% of students and only 6% of students studied abroad for a full academic year.