Deceptively Blonde

“Rich students ‘five times more likely to study abroad’”

by Chris Havergal via “TIME’s Higher Education“

Undergraduates from the most affluent families are up to five times more likely to go abroad as part of their degree than less privileged students, a new study says.

Around one in 13 undergraduates (7.9 per cent) who graduated in 2013-14 and were from higher managerial and professional backgrounds went overseas to study, work or volunteer during their course, according to analysis of the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey, compared with just 1.6 per cent of those whose parents were long-term unemployed.

The UK Higher Education International Unit, which conducted the research, found that the aggregated mobility rate for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds was 3.4 per cent, compared with the overall mean of 5.4 per cent.

There were also significant differences in participation by gender and by ethnicity. Female students were two and a half times more likely to go abroad than their male counterparts, and white undergraduates were around twice as likely to go abroad as their black and Asian peers.

These differences largely disappeared when language students, who account for 38 per cent of all international trips, were discounted.

However, the under-representation of students from less privileged backgrounds, and of black men, was unaffected.

The International Unit said the findings were concerning because, according to its analysis, students from disadvantaged backgrounds were among those who stood to gain the most from going abroad.

Five per cent of students from disadvantaged families who had an international experience were unemployed six months after graduation, compared with 6.2 per cent of less privileged students who did not go overseas, DLHE returns show.

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Tags: Student Ramblings, Study Abroad, Why Study abroad

“The Study-Abroad Solution”

by Sanford J. Ungar via “Foreign Affairs“

In the Internet age, the world feels far smaller than it used to. But many Americans still know little about the rest of the world and may be more detached from it than ever. Such a lack of awareness is, in certain respects, understandable. Once the Cold War ended, some 25 years ago, Congress, perhaps out of a false sense of security, cut the foreign affairs budget, which led to the closing of some U.S. overseas posts. The news media, especially the commercial television networks, took their cue and began to reduce overseas coverage—responding, they said, to the decline of public interest in such matters, which conveniently coincided with their own economic woes. Although the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq stimulated renewed attention to international events, that phenomenon proved short-lived. Consequently, as new global challenges have arisen in recent years, American discourse on world affairs has lacked historical context or deeper understanding. It has become difficult to stir thoughtful, informed debate on foreign policy issues during congressional—or even presidential—campaigns. Many politicians who aspire to lead the country seem not to understand what constitutes a foreign policy issue, let alone the complexity of dealing with one. A candidate who speaks a foreign language appears almost suspect.

One symptom of Americans’ new isolation is a sharp contrast between the positive, even zealous views they hold of the United States and its role in the world and the anti-Americanism and negative perceptions of U.S. foreign . . . .

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Tags: Student Ramblings, Study Abroad, Why Study abroad