Study abroad programs pack in fewer students on declining dollar

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 2, 2008 by Emilie Bahr

Loyola University's summer in Paris program began five years ago, providing as many as 20 students a year with the opportunity to spend a month in the City of Lights.

But this year, the Paris trip was canceled after failing to attract enough participation.

"We usually get 16 to 20 people in Paris," said Mary McCay, interim dean of Loyola's College of Humanities and Natural Sciences and director of the university's Paris summer program. Just 10 students signed up for this year's trip, she said, about five shy of the number required to make the trip financially feasible.

"We can't afford it if we don't get a certain number," McCay said.

The Paris trip wasn't the only program Loyola canceled this year. Programs in London and Spain met similar fates. A voyage McCay is leading to Ireland will go ahead as planned, not because it attracted the number of students she would have liked but because she was able to find grant money to subsidize the cost.

"I would guess that a lot of it is the fact that plane tickets are so expensive," she said. "The dollar is a disaster against the euro. And kids are not going (abroad)."

The University of New Orleans sponsors seven summer travel programs, a majority of them in Europe where a currency with more than 50 percent the buying power of its American counterpart is straining budgets of would-be American participants.

Thanks in significant part to heavy recruitment outside the university, UNO was able to attract adequate participation in those programs this year, though rising costs are a serious concern among students and faculty members, said Pete Alongia, a program coordinator with the university's Division of International Education.

To allay the financial worries of faculty members accompanying students, Alongia said the university boosted teacher pay slightly this year.

"But with such a dramatic increase in the euro," Alongia said, "faculty may not do as well as they usually do."

In many cases, the appeal of heading overseas continues to outweigh concerns about the price tag attached to such excursions, Alongia said.

"We haven't had a problem finding faculty," he said. "There's always interest in going abroad."

Alongia, for one, leaves in three weeks to oversee UNO's summer program in Innsbruck, Austria.

At Tulane University, interest in study abroad remains strong though students' program selections are changing, a result at least partly attributable to the relative strength of the euro, said Richard Watts, director of the Tulane Center for Global Education.

"What we have noticed ... is a subtle shift in destinations: proportionally fewer to Europe and more to Latin America and Asia," he said in an e-mail. "If the current dollar-euro exchange persists or becomes even more unfavorable, we can expect a much more significant realignment."

Loyola law student Frank Harrington returned about a week ago from an eight-day, university-sponsored trip to Rome and Istanbul. Most years, he said, the trip attracts as many as 20 students. This year, Harrington said he was one of just two students to take part in a program focused on the foundations of civil law.

"The trip has been way more expensive than I thought," Harrington, 30, said in an e-mail from Turkey, estimating he spent around $3,500 on tuition, travel and incidental costs. "The euro killed me. If four of us jumped in a cab, the meter started at $18. It was unreal. ... Honestly, if I had a child who wanted to study abroad right now, I'd have to put the kibosh on it. It's just too expensive."