For most students a semester or year abroad will be their first exposure to the outside world. It will teach them skills far beyond what they would learn in their home classrooms or lectures halls. They will learn how inter-connected the world really is, absorb cultural norms foreign to them, build confidence in their own ability to adapt to a different academic setting and way of life and along the way hopefully make life long friends. As these students journey through life, their study abroad experience will stay with them – a distant memory but one that they will build on whilst continuing to take on even greater challenges.

The issues discussed here refer to semester and year abroad for US students going abroad.

Most would argue that study abroad should not be considered as a `product’ but the commercial reality of the study abroad `business’ has made study abroad into a product that is now aggressively marketed. As we would all be aware, lobbying in the business world often dilutes the issue of quality and credibility and when it comes to study abroad, `who you know’ has taken center stage in generating applications.

Networking and cultivating relationships is crucial if we are to improve programs and services to students. This is good for the study abroad industry. However, as an industry, there is now far more expenditure in lobbying-type activities (entertainment, special incentives to send students on select study abroad programs and other such initiatives) than ever before. What was previously the domain of commercial organizations that dealt with products and services historically not related to the education industry, has now moved to the forefront of the study abroad student business.

There is concern that some schools in conjunction with their `preferred’ study abroad programs find ways to `eliminate’ or `force out’ the competition (often smaller organizations) by forming exclusive (usually not transparent) contracts/relationships. This provides US students a much narrower selection of what programs are offered by the many study abroad programs that do work extremely hard to bring study options to students. These issues have created monopolies which sometimes end up costing outbound students more money because programs having  a monopoly are paying a  higher price for managing relationships. We now live in an industry where the student is no longer the consumer but a Home School is. The focus has therefore, shifted from the student to a school with some School personnel being `gate-keepers’ of the study abroad industry. 

The way in which many schools now defend their relationships/contracts (often not transparent) is by raising issues of program quality if they choose not to send students to particular programs. Some schools invite programs to their study abroad fair as it generates interest in the fair by making it a large scale fair and therefore, attracts students to the notion of study abroad. However, some of these schools then provide greater opportunity to `preferred’ programs to receive the benefits of the marketing exercise.

The issues related to integrity, fairness and transparency have been simmering on the back burner for a number of years. This is not a new issue, however, it is not talked about openly for fear of retaliation.

The My Study Australia website has been created for the Australian Education Connection (AEC program), with a view to providing students, parents and advisers information about semester abroad, year abroad, full degrees, transfer and internship programs to Australia and New Zealand.

When supporting select programs (usually those that invest heavily in relationships/lobbying and infrastructure), various interpretations of `quality’ are suggested:

1. An organization that is a non-profit is set up for the good of the student and therefore, offers better service and lower cost – Wrong. The education sector in North America has always valued relationships with both the private for-profit and also the not-for-profit sectors. Therefore, it is wrong to assume that when it comes to managing semester and year abroad programs, a for-profit organization would not provide good service, or indeed affordable programs! Therefore, the focus should be on the quality and cost of the study abroad experience.

1. a program has been operating for a long time and therefore, offers better service – Wrong again. It is how a business is managed, how services are delivered and how costs are contained that is important. Some businesses are managed from the viewpoint of a student – what does the student really want? More debt or a choice of programs, including lower cost program options?

1. a program is new and therefore, the `new kid on the block’ has fresh ideas and offers better services. Wrong again. It is how a business is managed, how services are delivered and how costs are contained that are important.

1. a program has appointed staff from local universities or large organizations to its Board, therefore, providing compelling advice re `status’ and/or the ability to provide quality programs  – This is not the correct way to judge a program’s capacity to deliver a good program. There are conflict of interest issues that arise, particularly when most of the outbound students end up going through these programs.

1. a small organization with less staffing could not possibly be able to provide service as good as the large organization or the non-profits, with representatives throughout the region who could better service students.  Wrong. This is not the way to judge a program’s capacity to deliver good service! Over 80% of employment in the US is created by small business. These businesses offer credible services daily. Many independent programs similar to the AEC, visit only a select number of universities a few times during the year to provide first hand information to students during student fairs. These small programs invest in publishing materials, mail-outs (boxes of materials going to study abroad offices) and provide telephone and email access to students for information provision, advising and all support. Small programs also have extensive information on their web sites and manage student pre-departure orientation broadcasts, on-arrival briefings/orientation with the assistance of the overseas universities and generally do all they can do to provide a good quality service similar to large organizations.

Technology has made it possible to provide information on a product or service without the level of vetting that is demanded by some schools because of their alignment with `preferred’ programs.

In the case of Australia and New Zealand, all universities represented by programs are accredited and nearly all are accredited also for receiving US financial aid. In other words, if a student is eligible for US financial aid, that student could go to an Australian or New Zealand university and access their US financial aid. Therefore, allowing students to go to a university abroad only through a `preferred' program denies students choice. It is difficult to understand why some schools would work only through a preferred program or affiliate when there are a number of programs with varied services on offer. This form of `control' by some home schools denies students choice - choice of services, choice of tours, choice of programs etc. This creates monopolies in the student market and forces students to take up the preferred option even though that option may cost the student more or provide the student travel and tours which the student could have considered unimportant given financial constraints. The AEC offers a direct enrollment service to students. Students cannot get to the Australian or New Zealand university for a lower program cost!

There are more and more schools that are aligning their  study abroad activities with a `preferred’ group of programs. These arrangements are not necessarily transparent. There  is a clear correlation between the numbers going abroad on select programs and the level of `lobbying’ that results in these relationships. It is currently not a level playing field. Whilst smaller programs continue to invest in a good array of publications, web sites and information provision generally, it appears that they don’t receive the same level of support at some schools.

If current trends (of excluding programs that represent US accredited overseas universities) continues, we will eventually have a study abroad industry managed by a handful of study abroad providers operating in North America. This will be to the detriment of students. This hurts students because they pay more, get into more debt with financial aid/loans, or they don’t go on study abroad programs!

There is little doubt that many study abroad offices require financial support to manage study abroad activities. Programs do understand this, however, there must be transparency in these relationships so that where there is an administrative fee payable, it is fixed for every program and has a direct correlation to the work carried out by the Home School in managing the student’s application through a program.

Generally, smaller programs have great success in sending US students abroad for full degrees, internships and other programs. This is because there is no dependence on the `gate-keepers’ at schools who control the study abroad student numbers by deciding which programs to use. It is also important to understand that independent for-profit programs, smaller programs, overseas programs and the various programs that exist in North America, do financially support the study abroad industry – through participation in conferences, exhibits, visits to campuses, delivery of materials, etc. Undermining these organizations hurts the industry generally.