Students around the globe are increasingly likely to study outside of their own country.
The number of students studying abroad rose from 800,000 in 1975 to 4.5 million in 2012, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "It's been doubling once a decade," says Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education. "There are projections it will go up to 8 million in another 10 years."
Answering to the growing demand for international work experience, leading international education exchange organisation CIEE last month merged with the US-based Academic Internship Council (AIC) in a bid to expand internship programming globally. The partnership will bring together 60 CIEE study centres worldwide and AIC’s global internship network to create what the organisations say is “the most comprehensive portfolio of internships in the field” both in programming scope and geographic locations.
US students studying abroad in Spain contribute more than €200 million to the national economy through local transportation, mobile phones, travel and cultural activities, according to the Association of North American Programs in Spain (APUNE). Due to differences in payment schemes between Spanish and US universities, researchers didn’t include the cost of tuition or facility rental in its Economic Impact of Study Abroad, Spain report – meaning that the real financial contribution US students make in Spain is much higher.
"Mi padre que es mexicano aplico a universidades en los Estados Unidos a finales del 1940, y se le ofreció becas por la Universidad de Arizona y la Reserva Occidental (ahora Case Western Reserve) en Cleveland. Su padre lo sentó y dibujó una línea del oeste al este a través de un mapa de los Estados Unidos, y dijo: "Por debajo de esta línea, no les gustan los mexicanos." Fue un momento fatal, pero asegurando papá regresaría a México después de la graduación. No le gusta el frío. Le hubiera encantado Tucson."
Consejeros de carrera en el campus 'han estado viendo señales alentadoras, y ahora una gran encuesta de los empleadores los respalda: El año que viene parece ser un año mucho mejor para los nuevos graduados universitarios que buscan empleo. Ofertas de empleo para los graduados se proyecta un crecimiento de dos dígitos en 2014-15, tras varios años de incrementos más pequeños, de acuerdo con las principales conclusiones de la encuesta, que fue lanzado el martes.
En los cinco años anteriores a 2011, la matrícula de educación superior se mantuvo constante. En los dos años de 2012 y 2013, el número de estudiantes universitarios cayó, con la disminución uniformemente dividido entre los estudiantes tradicionales y no tradicionales. Hubieron menos estudiantes en el 2012 que en el 2010, una tendencia preocupante para las instituciones de aprendizaje, acostumbrados a un mercado en expansión.
"My Mexican father applied to colleges in the United States in the late 1940s, and was offered scholarships by the University of Arizona and Western Reserve (now Case Western Reserve) in Cleveland. His father sat him down and drew a line from west to east across a map of the United States and said: “Below this line, they don’t like Mexicans.” It was a fateful moment, all but ensuring Dad would return to Mexico upon graduation. He did not like the cold. He would have loved Tucson."
Campuses’ career counselors have been seeing encouraging signs, and now a major survey of employers backs them up: The coming year looks to be a much better one for new college graduates seeking jobs. Job openings for those graduates are projected to grow by double digits in 2014-15, following several years of smaller increases, according to key findings from the survey, which was released on Tuesday. Hiring of new bachelor’s-degree recipients will increase by 16 percent, the survey projects; hiring among all degree levels will grow at the same rate.
In the five years preceding 2011, higher education enrollment remained constant. In the two years of 2012 and 2013, the number of college students fell, with the decrease evenly split between traditional and non-traditional students. There were fewer students in 2012 than in 2010, a disturbing trend for learning institutions accustomed to an expanding market. More shocking still is the reporting by the New York Timesthat 33 percent of universities and colleges will be in danger of closing and are on an unsustainable fiscal path in the next decade should the trend continue.