This summer, we were very fortunate to spend our vacation touring a number of nations in Eastern Europe that were new to us. In addition to engaging in cultural experiences and performances; meeting remarkable people in every community we visited; seeing spectacular art, architecture, and scenery; navigating new languages; and relishing diverse cuisine; we were overwhelmed by a newfound appreciation for the history of the region.

One city we visited has been taken over militarily 144 times since the departure of the Romans. Every community had been shaped by invasions, wars, religious domination, and communism; and yet everywhere, we saw resilience, pride, and tempered optimism.

These are the kinds of lessons that cultural immersion and travel make possible. They are at the heart of why study abroad is so meaningful and important. “Educational tourism” has its own value, but real study abroad benefits from meaningful cultural immersion. That is what helps us to really appreciate our place in the world and the complexities each of us faces in an ever more global order.

Modern study abroad turns one hundred this year. In 1923, Raymond Kirkbride, a French professor at the University of Delaware, took a group of students to Nancy, France for intensive language classes, and then they went to Paris to take classes at the Sorbonne. This program was called Junior Year Abroad. It soon became the model for other intensive study abroad programs.

About a decade later, the Junior Year Abroad program was acquired by Sweet Briar College, but stalled for another decade framed by the prelude to and recovery from World War II. It relaunched as Junior Year in France (JYF) in 1948, and over its history, thousands of students from colleges and universities across the Unites States spent a year or semester studying in France on that program. Sadly, it closed in 2020, in part due to the pandemic.

With St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, Sweet Briar also created one of the first international-exchange programs in 1932. Students would complete one year of study at the sister institution as a “regular” residential student.

As Dean at Sweet Briar, I had the privilege to be the Doyen (Dean) of JYF for eight years, which along with some very meaningful administrative endeavors also afforded me with opportunities to attend occasional classes at the Alliance française and to participate in cultural events with our students.

The semester students had life-changing experiences, but when I would ask the year students what was different about the second semester, the response was almost always, “Sometime during the second semester, I started dreaming in French.” That’s immersion.

Study abroad helps us to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of home, it prompts us to consider different worldviews and cultural values, and it challenges us to rethink where each of us fits in a global society.

Immediately following my master’s degree, I was fortunate to participate in the Oxford Summer Seminar, which was sponsored by the University of Massachusetts at Trinity College, Oxford. It was such a formative experience.

I had been given a scholarship that was tied to directing a choir from the seminar participants. Most of the students on the program were studying English Literature or Art History, but a group of volunteers from the student body and the faculty came together as a cheery and earnest group. We performed a concert of British music from eight centuries and group of American folksongs and African-American Spirituals. An enormous side benefit was that I could use the chapel as a studio/teaching space.

Studying in Oxford gave me a deep appreciation of the quote, “England and America are two nations divided by a common language,” which is typically attributed to George Bernard Shaw. It was surely even more true in the 1980s than it is now. Culturally, politically, and linguistically, I found myself asking “Why” dozens of times each day. Being at a 900-year-old institution gave a new scale to what working with primary sources could mean, and the tutorial component of my studies has shaped how I teach ever since.

Susquehanna University’s GO (Global Opportunities) program is a remarkable component of our curriculum. Every student has the opportunity to study away. About 95% choose to study in another country, but some students select options that immerse them in a culture different from their own within the U.S.

Our students can do this in three ways:

• GO Short — These are usually 2- to 6-week academic experiences led by members of our faculty. They include significant experiential-learning components.
• GO Long — These are semester-long programs, some led by our faculty and many offered by third-party partners who often oversee program affiliated with universities in the host country.
• GO Your Way — These are self-designed projects that are put together with support from our faculty and staff.

All GO programs have three things in common: students must have an immersive experience in a different culture, each GO experience must meet the program’s learning goals, and students complete a pre- and post-experience class. Those classes are unique to Susquehanna. They help students make the most of their GO trips, and they help them interpret what they learned and how they have been changed by the experience.

Our students cite the GO program as one of the most meaningful components of their college careers. Study abroad has been more broadly identified as one of the highest-impact practices in higher education.

What was seen as a bold experiment in 1923 has become a highlight of the collegiate experience.

Last month, Tom Foley, President of AICUP (The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania) and I wrote the following op-ed for PennLive in response to an earlier editorial they had published that presented some very misleading information. It made good points, but left out the most important details.

A college degree is still the best way to earn more over your lifetime.

Yes, there are some examples, like the one cited in the PennLive piece, where someone without a degree may have a higher base salary early in their career than those who have a college degree. But if money is your only measuring stick on the value of higher education, your best choice is still college. The return on investment of a college degree has never been greater.

According to repeated analyses by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a four-year degree generates an annual return of 14% over a 40-year career—that’s annual return. That means that a college degree will show a rate of return more than twice the rate than if you just put your college money into Dow futures four years ago, and five times the return for bonds, gold or real estate. If college were a stock, it would be the darling of Wall Street.

Bottom line: college grads are 3.5x as likely to improve their income and their “position in life” than those who don’t get the chance to go to college.

And college isn’t just about making more money. On top of those immense economic benefits, there are also societal benefits to a college degree. College graduates volunteer twice as often for local causes, donate 3.5x as much to local charities, are twice as likely to build a small business in their hometown, and 50% more likely to vote.

What families actually pay is the right measuring stick, not the sticker price

Although the price tag of college has risen significantly, institutional financial aid at independent nonprofit institutions has risen more. This is in direct contrast to the PennLive graphic attached to the editorial.

Had PennLive used net tuition and fees (what families actually pay) in its graphic, it would show that AICUP schools’ average net tuition has remained constant (non-inflation-adjusted) for the last 10 years (US Department of Education IPEDs data), averaging $13,057 in the 2020-21 academic year as compared to $13,022 in 2011-12–for the 90+% of students who receive financial-aid grants. If you factor in inflation, the actual cost to families at AICUP schools has gone down.

Here are some other important facts about Pennsylvania’s independent nonprofit colleges and universities:

• Independent nonprofit schools are embedded in 60 communities in PA. They generate $24B to our economy each year, employ over 195,000 people, and pay $1.1B in state/local taxes. These AICUP schools operate without any of the $1.4B in direct State institutional aid that goes to public higher education. They have been competing in the free market (against both publicly funded schools and out-of-state institutions) for an average of 137 years.
• Independent nonprofit schools provide 90% of student financial aid grants, far more than any other higher ed sector. AICUP schools provide 90% of all financial aid grants to first-year students, with the federal government contributing 7% and the state government (largely through PHEAA) 3%. Their competitive net tuition and generous aid policies are part of the reason that PA remains the second-best net importer of out-of-state students in the country.

At the end of the day, the average young person graduating high school today will have 17 jobs in five to six different professions. They will have to be lifelong learners to keep pace with the technology changes that hold so much sway over our daily lives and now occupations. A post-secondary education is still the best way to build skills and the kind of confidence (intellectual and otherwise) that will help you adapt to all that change.