Voting with their year-abroad, students pick China

NATIONAL: "Study Abroad Flourishes, With China a New Hot Spot," by Tamar Lewin, New York Times, 17 November 2008.

Another sign of the future: all the big jumps in enrollment by U.S. students overseas is with New Core pillars, with Old Core Europe and Japan trailing.

Comments

[Dave Porter]

Yes, these outgoing study abroad statistics are indicators that some students, parents, and educational institutions grasp some vision of the future. But those same statistics also show how unprepared our next generations as cohorts will be for the interconnected world they will live in. Far too few college students study abroad. Hardly any high school students study abroad. No public school district in the US, to my knowledge, pays for its high school students to study abroad, even though it can cost less to send a student abroad for an academic year (tuition, room & board, transportation) than the per pupil cost in district. There will be legislation here in Oregon in our 2009 session to permit public school districts to pay for high school students to study abroad using state and local monies. We need changes in public education to support your vision of the 21st century.