Minorities, specifically black and Hispanic students, are the most underrepresented groups in study abroad programs, reports USA Today. According to the Institute of international Education’s (IIE) annual Open Doors report, Hispanic students represent 8 per cent of Americans abroad, while black students comprise only 5 per cent.
Despite being a “textbook example” of soft power and “the best money we spend overseas,” the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) has experienced consistent funding cuts over the past several years, Foreign Policy reports:
Shifting current attitudes in the Middle East away from fear and towards trust-building is best accomplished through people-to-people exchange programs, according to Richard LeBaron, a retired U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait. LeBaron suggests that in order to counter terrorism, we need only look at the decade long studies of the roots of radicalization coupled with serious consideration of exchanges as strategic tools rather than “a nice thing to do.”
The closure of a once commonly used visa track, for post-study international students to work in the U.K., has had negative impacts on British businesses and universities, The Pie News reports.
Funding cuts to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX), a bilateral exchange program supported jointly by the U.S. and Germany, are facing bipartisan criticism from members of Congress, as well as from the German government. In addition to opposition from CBYX program alumni, the cuts have “spawned an unusual coalition in Washington that is working hard to reverse the partial defunding of the program,” Deutsche Welle reports.
The Indian academic community has voiced concerns regarding the one-sided nature of the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GAIN), an exchange that only incorporates Indians hosting Americans but not the other way around, according to The Chronicle Of Higher Education. GAIN is an Indian program that will host 1,000 American scholars annually.