International education group seeks to double number of US students studying abroad in 5 years - Hannah Selby 4th

   Today, the Institute of International Education announced its new campaign, called Generation Study Abroad. This program seeks to double the number of American students studying abroad after high school by 2019. They hope that an estimate of 600,000 students will study abroad annually by that time - as opposed to the 295,000 students of 2011-12.  The reason is because studying abroad is a huge career enhancer, and hundreds of thoudands more foreign students come to study in the US than Americans that leave to study internationally. A total of about 10% of US students take part in studying abroad before college graduation, with higher percentages coming from liberal arts colleges and lower percentages from community colleges.
  The institution plans to focus on recruiting low-income students and students from colleges that usually have few participants. 160 universities have already agreed to participate in the campaign, and the institution has raised about $2 million so far to use to help students meet the payments required, since they've concurred that money is the biggest obstacle. If all goes well, the campaign will be a success.
In my opinion, I think this is a great idea - I think it's great that they're trying to encourage more people to study abroad and are helping out people that struggle to find enough money to pay for it. However, I think that maybe there are other things that we should be investing our money in first to help the economy before we focus on programs like this.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/03/international-education-group-seeks-to-double-number-us-students-studying/