By 2019, Western Michigan University hopes to see a 50 percent increase in the number of students studying abroad. But what will that mean for students juggling the cost of tuition, living expenses, and more? Western is already creating new programs to make studying abroad easier.
Western’s new goal came from the national initiative Generation Study Abroad. It seeks to double the number of U.S. students studying in other countries. WMU Study Abroad Coordinator Korey Force says Western’s faculty settled on a more realistic number.
“That’s actually a lower goal than the national initiative. But what we had to do is really sit down and look at what was feasible and reasonable with the resources that we have here at Western in our office as well as on campus,” she says.
Force says the new approach should be a boost for Western students and alumni. She says studies show that going overseas helps students academically, and gives them a boost in the professional world.
“Cognitively, study abroad alumni are outperforming in flexibility, creativity, and complex thinking tasks. Academically, they’re graduating with higher GPA’s and at higher rates. So they’re more likely to graduate in four years and five. And then professionally they’re doing better. They’re getting more job offers after school, or after college, with higher starting salaries,” says Force.
To reach that 50 percent goal, Force says she needs students to buy into study abroad. She says that means teaching students that studying abroad doesn’t have to be unaffordable.
“But there are lots of ways that studying abroad can cost the same as WMU or less. And so, we really try to touch on those affordability factors,” she says.
Force says Western’s study abroad office hands out around $400,000 in scholarships every year, with new programs on the way to pay for things like airfare. Western Sophomore Brendan Sapato got almost $9,000 in scholarships for his trip to Spain in the fall. He says applying was surprisingly easy.
“So I filled out an application like the day it was due, I was really slacking on that. But yeah it was just like a quick essay about like why I would want the scholarship and then I interviewed for it in Spanish, so that was a little intimidating, but it worked out well and I got it,” he says.
Force says there are a lot of ways to make the financials work. For one thing, unlike many other schools, Western lets students transfer their financial aid to study abroad programs. Joshua Place is a study abroad peer advisor at Western. He says financial aid, combined with some planning and $3,500 in other scholarships, made his time studying in Germany affordable.
“So for my trip I saved up money that I had previously earned from, you know, previous jobs. I also had financial support from my parents, but I also applied for three other scholarships: the President’s Grant for Study Abroad, the College of Arts and Sciences scholarship, and the Department of World Languages and Literature scholarship. That paid for my plane ticket and more,” says Place.
Michelle Metro-Roland is the director of faculty and global program development at Western’s Haenicke Institute. It works with students who apply for the state and national scholarships.
“Part of what I do is helping students figure out what awards are good for them, for the kinds of things that they want to do, and working with them through the whole application process. So figuring out who they’re going to get to write letters of recommendation, if those are needed, working with them on their essays and revising them,” says Roland.
Along with the educational benefits students receive, there are personal ones as well. Joshua Place – the Western student who went to Germany - says his trip helped him become a more independent person.
“I am an only child, so it was very hard to leave my parents for six months - but I learned to take better care of myself. I grew mentally. I learned what I did and didn’t like. I was just able to grasp life a little better, but in a more free sense,” says Place.
