Today, about half of all USC architecture students take one of these popular excursions during their five-year bachelor's programs, says the school's academic affairs advisor Ron Andrade. Last year, Open Doors reported that St. Olaf College and Kalamazoo College led American institutions with 94.3 percent of students participating in study abroad. Those are tiny liberal arts colleges, however. Among research institutions, the school to beat is Michigan State University, which sends a total of 1,454 students abroad in a year. Be careful what you wish for, though.
Study abroad has the potential to rock the system if it keeps mounting.
When Russian literature professor Marcus Levitt, who chairs the overseas studies panel of the Academic Senate's Curriculum Committee, served on a review panel of Pomona College, he found that the private liberal arts college sends 50 percent of its students abroad. That means 12 percent of students are gone all the time. Such a high level of participation affects everything from dorm vacancies to a university's operating budget. It would require some institutional adjustment. However, this would be a positive and relatively easy 'problem' to adjust to.