Big 12 Students Lobby for Simon Act

Students from Big 12 universities have been in Washington this week, lobbying members of Congress for support of the Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act that would provide support for significant increases in study abroad opportunities for students.

The Lariat at Baylor University reports that the students were in Washington as part of the annual Big 12 on the Hill day in the capital. The students were also pushing for more funding for Pell Grant programs that help needy college students get their educations.

The Simon Act would seek to boost study abroad in the U.S. by nearly fourfold to 1 million per year. It would also aid students from traditionally underrepresented groups in study abroad, and it would promote nontraditional destinations for study abroad.

The ultimate goal of the Simon Act, supporters say, is to make study abroad as common a part of the higher education experience as writing or science coursework.

‘Get Them to Buenos Aires’

The Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer chimes in with support of the Simon Foundation Study Abroad Act, reintroduced in the Senate last week. He’s particularly happy with the bill’s support of study abroad in nontraditional locations, such as central and South America.

While Latin American countries are among the leading U.S. trading partners, and a major destination of U.S. investments, only 4.2 percent of U.S. college students spend some time studying in Mexico, 2.4 percent in Costa Rica, 1.6 in Argentina, and 1.3 in Chile and Ecuador.

That’s a sad situation because people's experiences in college often mark their own — and their countries’ — future. It’s OK to have U.S. students going to London, or Rome, but it’s increasingly important to get them to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Islamabad or Johannesburg.

New Push for Federal Aid for Abroad Study

The push for a five-fold increase in the number of U.S. college and university students going abroad is getting a renewal in the Senate.

Against the backdrop of President Barack Obama’s advocacy of greater global engagement by Americans, Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, and Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, reintroduced the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act on Wednesday.

The bill seeks to provide funding to bring about the Lincoln Commission’s recommendation, adopted in 2005, that 1 million Americans be studying abroad yearly by 2015. A version passed the House in 2007 but stalled procedurally in the Senate.

While 55 percent of high school students say they plan to study abroad in college, only about 1 percent actually do. And, according to the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, almost two-thirds of those who do go abroad study in western Europe.

The bill reintroduced on Wednesday also seeks to increases study-abroad opportunities for underrepresented student groups and to increase study abroad in nontraditional locations where most of the world’s population increase is taking place.

Prospects for passage are unclear in when Congress and the president are focused on the recession. Any approval of funding for study abroad initiatives would also have to go through the appropriations process.