“Mobile students” (those who participated in an exchange program, worked, or studied in a placement program abroad) were found to have lower unemployment rates and earn higher quality jobs than non-mobile students, the Pie News reports.
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.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the Summer Work Travel (SWT) program, released this afternoon, commends the Department of State on its strengthened oversight of SWT, while acknowledging the public diplomacy value of this exchange program that brings up-and-coming leaders to the U.S. for summer cultural experiences.
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.”
Earlier today, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered opening remarks to the inaugural Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women/U.S. State Department entrepreneurship program. Through this initiative, 29 women from 15 Middle Eastern countries will take part in a 2-week seminar focused on entrepreneurial skills training.
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.
Exchanges are a strategic imperative to current national security goals, according to Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan. Assistant Secretary Ryan specifically referenced the importance of the State Department’s educational and cultural exchanges, English language learning, and cultural heritage preservation efforts as key to current anti-ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS) efforts.
Secretary of State John Kerry, throughout the past two days, testified before several congressional committees with regard to the President’s FY16 State Department budget request.