<p>Keep in mind that these percentages include short-term summer programs and winter-term programs in addition to traditional one or two semester programs. These short term programs can send the percentages through the roof, which is fine, but not necessarily directly comparable to schools that just report semester or full-year study abroad.</p>
<p>Conversely, there are schools that fund summer internships, thesis research, and service projects abroad, but do not give academic credit for these per se and thus would not include them in their reported numbers to this organization.</p>
<p>My #1 piece of advice to shoppers is to look into how the colleges you are considering fund study abroad. There are several different approaches, any of which may be more or less attractive depending on your financial aid status and the cost of the programs that interest you.</p>
<p>My second piece of advice is to consider the types of programs the school offers. Do their programs typically involve lifting an entire group of students from the school and transporting them as a group to study abroad? Do their programs favor more immersive experiences?</p>
<p>good points interesteddad…I learned much with this past summer’s college touring about the variety of qualities for study abroad options…many, many differences in financing, credit transfer policies, school sponsored programs vs other programs, approved vs non-approved programs, Jan plan vs full semester, individual vs group participation, etc…</p>
<p>To add, upon further inspection, the stats quoted in the linked study can be deceiving, as you alluded. Couple of examples (although the years don’t exactly match up):</p>
<p>Here are some stats from a few more LACs. Keep in mind that what is generally reported is % of a class or of the entire undergraduate student body that takes some kind of study abroad (some also include study in the US away from campus). There appears to be no standardized method of calculation, so consider these numbers only roughly comparable.</p>
<p>Another note…based upon the Middlebury & Swarthmore information, which includes multiple years of data, one can see a fairly large variability of percent participation from year to year, on the order of 10+% sometimes. This leads me to conclude that one year snapshots (& I’m guessing that some of the other college-reported stats are just for one - perhaps favorable - year, but I have no way of knowing) can be deceptive especially trying to compare participation rates between schools…so beware.</p>
<p>The study abroad figure is expressed as a fraction of the graduating class: if more than roughly 1/4 of the student body studies abroad in the survey year, the figure will be over 100%. All the figures seem high, largely because just about any experience outside the US counts (see interesteddad’s post above).</p>
<p>I don’t think works that way marathonman or else why would they reference the class size of the college, rather than total enrollment. I’m guessing that the one specific school with > 100% has some kind of program in place where more students study abroad for two semesters than those who don’t go away at all.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that they get the figure by taking the total # of students studying abroad in 2004-5 (col 6–and this will contain freshmen through seniors) divided by the total undergraduate degrees conferred (col 7–basically the graduating seniors only). Their heading for the final column “estimated undergrad participation in study abroad” is maybe slightly misleading.</p>
<p>Interesteddad’s point is significant: these figure say little about the quality or duration of the study-abroad experiences. There’s a story, perhaps urban legend, about one of the colleges that claimed to send all of their students abroad. An admissions dean from a competing college asked, perhaps a little enviously, how they did it. The reply? “We put the ones who haven’t fulfilled the requirement on a cruise ship and make sure it leaves American waters.”</p>
<p>It’s a tricky calculation because students study abroad at various points: spring semester sophmore year, fall semester junior year, spring semester junior year, fall semester senior year. The way the enrollment data is reported, you have be really careful not to double-count a student who spends a full year abroad. That’s before we even start thinking about summer abroad programs, winter term abroad programs, and so forth. The best way to get an accurate number is to actually add up the graduating seniors each year who have studied abroad…but you seldom see things reported that way.</p>
<p>By the way, the cruise ship is not urban legend. There is a Semester at Sea program where 670+ college students board a cruise ship (drinking age 18 in the ship’s bars) and sail around the world. It is considered to be a joke of a program academically (aka “Kindergarten at Sea”, “The Floating Mattress”, “The Booze Cruise”) …although not without merit as a fun travel experience.</p>
<p>BTW, women study abroad at much higher rates than men. Science majors study abroad at the lowest rates: it can be a challenge to fulfill graduation requirements when the courses are laid out in a fairly strict sequence as they often are for science and engineering majors.</p>
<p>The most heavily endowed schools probably get under-counted a bit. These schools often have a significant amount of money available to sponsor summer research abroad, both as part of quasi-merit “scholars” programs and as funded thesis research for rising seniors. None of this is counted in “study abroad” statistics.</p>
<p>Austin College says that approximately 70% of its students study abroad. A high number for sure, but a clear distinction from 100%!
Goes to show how easily stats can be manipulated</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>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.]</p>
<p>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.) </p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>Those percentages relate to the price of study abroad in relation to the cost of college here, and financial aid.</p>
<p>Most study abroad programs are slightly less expensive than sticker price at the top-dollar colleges, but more expensive than the actual price most US college students pay (either after financial aid or at in-state publics).</p>
<p>You have to look at your own individual situation viz-a-viz college cost to determine what kind of study abroad funding makes sense.</p>
<p>I think the most popular approach colleges take is for you to pay your own study abroad costs and then charge you an administrative fee to transfer credits back home. Financial aid may or may not travel with you. This approach is certainly best if you are a full-fare customer at home and choosing a low-cost study abroad program.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that, if the college gives you financial aid at home, they don’t have to write a check, they are simply takinga discount on the price they charge you. If they allow you to study abroad in somebody else’s program, they are not only losing your revenue, but having to actually write a check if financial aid applies! Some schools restrict study abroad to their own programs where a group of their students picks up en masse to go abroad.</p>
<p>Some colleges are now having their study abroad students pay the home college the regular tuition (after financial aid) with the home college paying for the study abroad. This is ideal for financial aid students, but can end up costing full-fare customers more than they might otherwise pay for study abroad – in effect, the college is using progressive pricing such that full-fare customers subsidize study abroad for aid students. This system has the advantage of keeping all financial aid mechanisms (including federal aid and subsidized loans) in place because study abroad students are still technically enrolled at and paying the home college. </p>
<p>My daughter’s school adopted the second model about ten years ago (explicitly stated to subsidize study abroad for financial aid students). Since the cost was fixed, regardless of what we “ordered from the menu”, this policy did tend to push our family to consider more expensive study abroad programs over less expensive no-frills programs – just as you would probably order the lobster over the salisbury steak from a fixed price dinner menu.</p>
<p>Most summer programs are pure add-on expenses for the parents, above and beyond the cost of college. I suspect that participation in these tilts to a very high demographic as few of us can (or want to) pay for college tuition and a European vacation for the kid!</p>