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March 15, 2007 Vol. 2 Issue 3 NAFSA CALLS ON CONGRESS TO SUPPORT VISIONARY STUDY ABROAD BILL
Legislation Proposes Innovative Public-Private Partnership
On March 12, Representatives Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2007 (H.R. 1469).
The legislation’s bold vision is that at least one million American undergraduate students will study abroad annually in ten years’ time.
The legislation specifically cites the foreign policy challenges facing the United States as a central reason for the need to expand Americans’ knowledge of other cultures and foreign languages, and focuses particular attention on increasing participation by under-represented students and on encouraging students to study in nontraditional locations, especially in the developing world.
NAFSA strongly supports this significant bipartisan effort to bring government, higher education, and the private sector together to ensure that the next generation of Americans is ready for life and leadership in the global age. We urge Congress to pass and fully fund the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act.
The Simon Study Abroad Act: Frequently Asked Questions
View Bill Text (78kb  )
NAFSA Brief: The Public Policy Benefits of Study Abroad
Program Objectives
The program proposed by the Simon Study Abroad Act will serve three main objectives:
- to enhance the global competitiveness and knowledge base of Americans by significantly increasing the number of college students who study abroad;
- to improve America’s image abroad and to equalize opportunities for American students to succeed by giving special attention to expanding study abroad opportunities for students who are currently underrepresented in study abroad participation; and
- to increase the ability of the United States to engage with all parts of the world by ensuring that an increasing portion of study abroad by Americans takes place in nontraditional destinations.
An Innovative Public-Private Partnership
To administer the program, the legislation creates a lean, mission-driven, independent government foundation, taking a unique approach that will enable the program to meet its bold mandate through creative and entrepreneurial grant making, and to serve long-term foreign policy and national security needs while operating independently of short-term political and foreign policy considerations. The foundation will also be able to leverage funds through support from the private sector.
The program will provide both scholarships to students and encourage higher-education institutions to address the on-campus factors that most heavily impact study abroad participation – curriculum, faculty involvement, institutional leadership, programming – by making a commitment to institutional reform a prerequisite for the receipt of federal funds.
It is this leveraging of institutional reform that is the key to the success of the program. The opportunities for public-private collaboration built into the program’s vision will create a critical multiplier effect and make it possible to truly revolutionize study abroad in the United States – to make it an integral part of the 21st-century education of American college students.
Brief History of the Legislation
The Simon Study Abroad Act was inspired by and takes its name from the late Senator Paul Simon, who encouraged Congress to come together to ensure that the next generation of Americans is prepared with global knowledge and skills. His hard work led to the creation of a bipartisan federal commission whose report laid out the framework for a national undergraduate study abroad program to provide American college students with the language proficiency and international understanding necessary to communicate and connect with the world.
Senator Simon’s vision has earned resounding support from the academic and educational-exchange communities, as well as from policymakers on both sides of the aisle.
Policy Brief is a periodic electronic information resource for policy news and analysis on international education issues, published by NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
With over 9,000 members NAFSA is the world's largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education. NAFSA seeks to increase awareness of and support for international education and exchanges in higher education and government, believing that citizens with international experience and global awareness are crucial to U.S. leadership, competitiveness, and security.
We welcome your feedback about this publication. Please email: govrel[at]nafsa.org
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