Report: Study abroad numbers down, unconventional locales up

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

When I reminisce about college, I don’t think about sitting in an auditorium with 2,000 Intro to Astronomy students or standing in line for quarter beers at Kam’s.

My most vivid college memories aren’t even set at my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They’re set 4,000 miles away in Europe, where I spent my junior year abroad.

That’s where I got to study English literature, in England.

I didn’t just read about the fall of the Berlin Wall; I hopped on a train to Germany and watched it crumble in person.

I hitchhiked from England to the Eiffel Tower for charity, snuck into an opera at La Scala, explored the Louvre and Prado and toured Dachau’s concentration camp.

I’ve yet to meet one person who studied abroad and wished they hadn’t. (Then again, I’ve never crossed paths with Amanda Knox.) The only regrets I hear are from those who stayed home.

“I would do it again in a heartbeat,” said Bailey Gucinski of Naperville. The 20-year-old junior at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., returned home this month after a semester studying marine biology in Australia.

“It really fueled my desire to see what else is out there beyond the United States,” Gucinski said. “It makes you realize how big the world is.”

The trend for years has been a steady rise in the number of students racking up college credits beyond our borders — until now.

A recent State Department-funded report says the ranks of those studying abroad dropped slightly in the 2008-09 school year, the most recent data available. This marks the first time the numbers have dipped during the 25 years the Institute of International Education has tracked the information.

The not-for-profit group found that 260,327 U.S. students received college credit abroad during 2008-09, down 0.8 percent from the previous year.

In Illinois, 9,377 college students ventured abroad in 2008-09, down 1.6 percent from the year before.

Experts chalk up much of the downturn to the recession. Other factors — namely the H1N1 virus and reported violence — took a toll on specific destinations such as Mexico, which saw a 26 percent dip in U.S. students that year.

The institute’s report, based on a survey of nearly 3,000 U.S. colleges, not only looked at how many students are studying abroad, but also where they’re studying.

Long a favorite destination of American coeds, Western Europe continues to lose some of its market share to less traditional — and less expensive — locales.

Four percent fewer Americans studied in Europe in 2008-09, while the number of students shot up 16 percent in Africa and 13 percent in South America.

China was the only one of the top five host countries to show a jump in U.S. students that year. The other four nations — United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and France — all saw their numbers slide.

“There’s much more diversity in where students are going,” said Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the New York-based institute that compiles the annual study abroad data. “You’re seeing a drop in places that are expensive, like Western Europe, and growth in countries like China, Chile, Argentina, India.”

Julia Balto opted to spend the current school year in Ecuador. She’s a junior at the U. of I., which ranks 13th in the nation when it comes to study abroad numbers.

While in Ecuador, Balto has been practicing her Spanish, researching the effectiveness of Ecuador’s child malnutrition programs and interning at a hospital in the Amazon.

“I was looking for something more than going to Europe and getting drunk,” said the 20-year-old from the Mount Greenwood neighborhood. “I only intended to stay for a semester, but now I decided to stay for a full year.”

Her study abroad arrangement includes tuition, two meals a day and lodging with a local family.

“Ecuador is really inexpensive,” she said. “It’s actually cheaper for me to be here than at U. of I.”

Many schools have been working to make study abroad programs more affordable. And the website www.studyabroadfunding.org lists a slew of resources to help students cover the cost of overseas education.

Colleges also have been creative in coming up with shorter programs — some lasting two or three weeks in the summer — to make study abroad more accessible to those who can’t be away for an entire semester or school year.

Both of these factors historically have helped drive study abroad numbers higher, Blumenthal said. She expects that trend will resume soon, based on the results of a recent online survey of administrators at 238 U.S. college campuses.

“The majority of schools said their numbers have picked up for 2009-10,” Blumenthal said. “By this time next year, we expect to see the numbers of U.S. students studying abroad start climbing again.”