Supporting Education Abroad for Underrepresented Students

They don’t have the money. They can’t afford the time off from work. They have family obligations. They’ve never applied for a passport. They’ve never been on a plane.

All are reasons that LaNitra Berger has heard from minority and other underrepresented students for why they can’t study abroad. As director of fellowships in George Mason University’s Honors College, it’s Berger’s job to show students that what they consider obstacles to studying overseas may not be obstacles at all.

While people of color make up about 40 percent of graduating colleges classes in the United States, they comprise just a quarter of those who study abroad, according to the nonprofit Institute of International Education. The numbers are especially low for Latino and black students: just 8.3 percent of Hispanic undergraduates and 5.6 percent of black undergraduates study abroad, according to a Council on International Educational Exchange report.

“It isn’t that they don’t want to go abroad,” says Berger, an African American who calls her own study abroad experiences in Paris and Berlin “transformative.” “It’s just that there are so many other competing priorities. Sometimes they’re working 40 hours while going to school. Sometimes they’re living at home, have significant family responsibilities, and it’s hard to leave their family to go abroad. Sometimes, they just don’t have the right advising.”

So there is a growing effort among schools, nonprofits, businesses, and other entities to make sure the students who do go abroad better reflect the nation’s college campuses.

Why encourage underrepresented