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In 2004, The President and Congress appointed a 17-member bi-partisan "Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program" to recommend ways to greatly expand and enhance opportunity for American undergraduates to study abroad, with special emphasis on diversifying destinations, institutions and students. The Report: “Global Competence & National Needs: One Million Americans Studying Abroad” was issued on November 14, 2005. In 2005, the 109th Congress passed Senate Resolution 308 designating 2006 "The Year of Study Abroad" Extending the life of the Commission to further promote study abroad, nationwide.
Why Increase the Number of Undergraduates Who Study Abroad?
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It is important to prepare our undergraduates to live and work in a global society and study abroad is one of the ways in which this can be accomplished.
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Recent federal reports cite a language and cultural skill shortage in more than 70 agencies critical to national security, public diplomacy and economic competitiveness.
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Study abroad accelerates skill building and strengthens strategic relationships.
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Studying abroad improves foreign language skills.
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Studying abroad opens the door to new career options.
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Living in a foreign country helps students better understand the world at large as well as their own culture.
Who Studies Abroad?
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About 191,321 college students, constituting just slightly over 1% of total enrolled undergraduates, studied abroad in 2004-05, though 50% of college-bound high school students express an interest and 75% think it is important to study or participate in an internship abroad during their academic career.
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Two-thirds (60.9%) of study-abroad participants study in Europe, with fewer studying in large and often strategically important parts of the world such as Latin America (15.2%), Africa (3.0%), the Middle East (0.5%) and Asia (6.9%).
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Nearly two-thirds (65.6%) of those who study abroad are female and one-third (34.4%) is male, while the total undergraduate population is 56.4% female and 43.6% male.
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Only 3.4% of those who study abroad are black and 5.0% are Hispanic, while each group accounts for about 12% of the total U.S. undergraduate population.
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A disproportionately high number of humanities majors (14.6%of total undergraduates) comprise 30.2% of all students who study abroad, while engineering/computer science majors, who represent 14.1% of total undergraduates, enroll only 5.3% in overseas programs.
What Prevents More Undergraduates from Studying Abroad?
Additional Resources in .pdf format
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