Taking on the Challenge of Having a Significant Percentage of Community College Students Abroad

Gary Rhodes
Associate Dean, International Education & Senior International Officer,
College of Extended & International Education
Director, Center for Global Education
California State University at Dominguez Hills

The study abroad field continues to move forward and grow. However, when you look at the data, the U.S. study abroad field is expanding, in terms of student enrollments (total numbers and percentages) much slower than U.S. colleges and universities are in terms of the growth in enrollment of international students. Many say that the differences are based primarily on the ways that U.S. colleges and universities focus on the need for international students to pay the full cost of education in public universities or have a lower discount rate (get less scholarships and grants than U.S. students) in private colleges and universities.

As highlighted in previous Terra Dotta Newsletters, U.S. colleges and universities are putting great effort into supporting international students. All the work that U.S. colleges and universities do to internationalize the campus in the U.S. are important. However, no matter how much work is done, the potential for change and impact on campus pales in comparison to the potential of change that happens when a U.S. student has a well designed experience in another country, which requires a real passport, and a perspective of being the “other” in a way that’s impossible to fully replicate at home.

In the study abroad field, there is regular talk about increasing participation by recruiting students from diverse ethnic backgrounds… in providing more access to at-risk and first generation college and university students. Community colleges are and have always been the great equalizing factor in U.S. higher education. No matter how well or poorly someone does in the K-12 system, success at a community college can support movement to a four-year college or university that can help support movement forward to any career in the U.S. They provide a model of open access institutions, which used to be free. There is a current focus in the U.S. administration to again make community colleges free.

One of the challenges shared by the study abroad field and community colleges is that study abroad is generally not a money-maker for the home campus. It requires institutional infrastructure to implement study abroad. For all students to participate, it often requires that federal, state, and home campus scholarships be paid to foreign universities or other universities or study abroad program providers. Let’s be honest, study abroad will not solve the challenge of community college financial woes in the way that international students make an impact.

I have spoken to leaders of some study abroad providers who have clearly responded that they aren’t interested in community college students because they need (or want) to keep study abroad program fees high, that they want to make language, course pre-requisites, and GPA requirements at levels that discriminate against students from a community college as well as students who went to K-12 institutions that didn’t prepare them to be “A” students first semester freshman year and beyond. The challenge I would like to provide to the field is to rethink these requirements and if the priority is to really increase ethnic diversity in study abroad as well as to find room for at-risk and first-generation students, it is time to intentionally design programs that make that impact. The literature on study abroad retention and success shows that the impact is highest on students who come to college with lower SAT scores and lower GPAs.

According to Rosalind Raby, Director of California Colleges for International Education, a consortium of over 80 of the 112 community colleges in California:

For over two decades, the same obstacles have acted as barriers to studying abroad at community colleges. These barriers are elaborated upon in the IIE White Paper on community college education abroad “Meeting America’s global education challenge: Expanding education abroad at U.S. community colleges” (Raby, 2008). Two of these obstacles (cost and availability of faculty-led programs) are noteworthy when considering how to increase participation by this current generation.

California community college education abroad is dedicated to offering the highest quality programs at the lowest cost. The vast majority of month long programs in the summer are still around $3,500 including airfare and semester programs are in the $5,000-$7,000 range including airfare. In terms of availability, 46 different programs are being offered for Summer 2015, while 28 semester programs were offered for Fall 2014 and Spring 2015.

A range of opportunities exists despite limited staff. In California, the 2014 California Colleges for International Education State of the Field Report shows that dedicated professional staff for education abroad is not largely present. 33% of community colleges that offer education abroad do not have offices or full-time staff to coordinate these programs. Moreover, the vast majority of those who direct education abroad have these duties as a very small portion of their job requirements with 33% being Vice-Presidents, 16% Deans and 25% being department chairs. The amount of time available to dedicate to education abroad is thus limited. This does not allow students to meet with a study abroad advisor or help faculty leading programs to get help in developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. Much of the emphasis for marketing remains in the hands of individual faculty who are developing and leading the education abroad program.

Having community college faculty engaged in developing and implementing programs is a positive. Having them do all the work themselves while having all the regular responsibilities on campus will not allow opportunities and support to grow.

The use of technology for community college education abroad has not been documented, however anecdotal stories illustrate that it is widely used. From email blasts to a campus web-page, to managing alumni Facebook, to using YouTube, a range of social media platforms continue to allow students to share experiences, encourage new students, and navigate pre-departure and re-entry programming. Key to this process, however, is a dedicated individual who has the time and experience to constructively use these platforms.

Madison Area Technical College (Madison College) in Madison, Wisconsin has been making positive steps forward in prioritizing study abroad, getting institutional funding and outside grants to support study abroad and has been recognized with many awards for their efforts in community college internationalization and study abroad. According to Geoffrey Bradshaw, Director of the Center for International Education at Madison College:

Often community colleges lack anyone who conceives of themselves as anything as formal as a "Senior International Officer." However, it is important, no matter if you are a faculty member on course release, a one person office, or someone heading an established office to support study abroad, that you connect with professional organizations to gather best practices, information, and tools to safely and effectively implement programs abroad. Especially for colleges with minimal support systems for study abroad, it is critical that you share models of health, safety and risk management that provide strong support for community college students traveling abroad and protect your institutions from liability. Technology to manage program data, student contacts, and track travel is one of those tools.

At Madison College we created the Community College Sustainable Development Network (CCSDN) as a means to share information about best practices and help empower more community colleges to grow new faculty-led service learning programs around the broad theme of sustainable development. If you are going to internationalize underrepresented fields of study it requires the excitement and enthusiasm of faculty teaching in the disciplines. The CCSDN project is designed to inspire and connect faculty in underrepresented STEM disciplines with real world global development problems and applied learning examples while providing colleges with the information they need to implement robust health and safety oversight of new faculty-led programs.

Collaboration is key to growing study abroad at community colleges. Often smaller colleges have trouble recruiting enough students to run programs related to specific fields of study or niche disciplines. The CCSDN model is based on bringing colleges together to run joint programs that recruit from a wider pool of interested students. We also encourage multidisciplinary programs that allow students in complementary programs to travel to the same location with overlapping activities that inform the learning of students in both fields of study.

The Education Abroad Coordinator in the Center for International Education at Madison College provided a rundown of the variety of program options that have been implemented to meet the needs of the many types of community college students:

“We don’t really have a “typical” Study Abroad program type. Following is a list of some of our models for implementing study abroad at Madison College:

Travel before and then online course
Semester course with travel at end
Semester course with travel in the middle (spring break or summer)
Service learning
Four-week program with entire course abroad (language immersion)
Consortium programs with other Community Colleges - semester and summer
Four-school/three country partnership that rotates location- students work on projects during semester and then meet for symposium abroad
Program providers
Programs that combine degree areas
Partnerships between various Community Colleges on one short-term program

Our programs tend to be the most successful when they are directly tied to a degree program. Since our students have large financial constraints, often work full-time, and have family responsibilities, having an experience abroad is not enough for them, they need to know they will develop a job skill or gain an insight abroad that they couldn’t here on campus. Our Traditional Healing in Peru, Renewable Energy, and Culinary programs are some examples. One of our areas of focus has been to internationalize occupational programs by providing short, intensive programs that engage faculty and students in a specific academic area. This allows students in that area to get hands-on experience in their degree areas. We also have an Interdisciplinary Global Studies Certificate, which combines world language study, global studies courses and study abroad, allowing students that study abroad to highlight their experience and global competencies in a more direct way. We have also had success with programs that combine subject areas for degree areas that would not have the capacity to support one full program of students. Similarly, we work with other Community Colleges on short-term programs to increase participation.

Funding is the largest challenge for our students. Therefore, having advance notice of programs is critical for students to apply for scholarships, save money, or work on securing other funding sources. We do everything we can to keep costs affordable for students, without compromising quality or safety. We have had great success by securing funding sources for first time programs or programs in specific degree areas, but the challenge that follows is when those funding sources end and as a result, the direct costs for students increases.

As is the case anywhere, engaged faculty are key to the success of our programs. Even more so than other places though, we rely on our faculty because we don’t often have return students since many students graduate or transfer shortly after they have studied abroad.

Our student population is not “traditional,” therefore a variety of program lengths and options is important as many of our students are working full-time, are parents, or have other responsibilities that make studying abroad challenging. This can also eliminate our students from participation in certain provider programs, as they may not meet requirements like junior status or certain course requirements. Non-traditional students also require different resources and advising. Many of our students have also never traveled at all, so we do need to provide more guidance for overall travel.

I see great benefits from the use of technology, although it can take a great deal of work to set-up technological resources, which can be challenging for small offices. Data collection and maintenance is the largest benefit to technology. It is important to have a dynamic and user-friendly website. Our college website system is not updated in real time and is hard to use for someone that doesn’t understand website programming, so specialized software programs have allowed me to create websites for our programs that can be updated immediately. Having an accurate website is one of our best marketing tools and allows us to refer students to the web if we aren’t able to immediately meet with students to discuss study abroad programs. As I mentioned, I also teach an online course for our semester students, which has many benefits, one of which is that it allows me to stay in touch with our students much more closely than I would otherwise.

Santa Fe College has designed an International Studies Certificate and uses ePortfolios to enhance the impact of study abroad on campus. Paloma Rodriguez has integrated other innovative practices to grow study abroad as International Education Coordinator at Santa Fe College:

An important way to increase participation in study abroad is not to let the programs exist in a vacuum. By integrating them into an International Studies or Global Distinction program, institutions can create a meaningful context in which study abroad is framed as an academic pursuit and a career enhancement opportunity. After launching the certificate program in fall 2013 enrollment in study abroad at Santa Fe College increased by 26%.

It is also essential to find adequate means to allow students to take ownership of the learning process and to increase the intentionality of their international experiences. At Santa Fe College we ask that our students build an electronic portfolio where they reflect on their time abroad, showcase valuable job skills gained through their international interactions, and start to develop a global identity. Thanks to their visibility and pragmatic applications eportfolios can certainly increase the social desirability of study abroad programs. However, and more importantly, these learner-centered projects constitute a pedagogical shift that can make student engagement not only greater but also more profound.

Along with eportfolios, technology can support study abroad efforts in other significant ways. Newsletters, announcements through LMS systems, a website featuring international events and opportunities, and an increased presence in social media can be the pillars of successful marketing efforts as well as powerful educational tools. Adopting a study abroad application software can be an important step as well towards easing the clerical workload of the study abroad office. If the software has been properly designed, then it can be much more than a mere time saving solution. It can lead to dramatic quality improvements in the administration of processes and in the area of risk management. At our institution adopting a study abroad application software has been a stimulating and instructive process towards, not just greater efficiency, but increased professionalization.

Some of the innovations in the community college programs can provide ideas on ways to increase study abroad opportunities at four-year colleges across the spectrum from highly resourced to institutions with limited resources. However, participation numbers remain low as a total as well as percentage of total enrollment, no matter how counting is done. For significant growth to take place in the future, the field, from association and institution leaders to campus faculty and staff, to federal, state, and private funders, to study abroad providers will need to make this a priority, connect it to critical issues like international learning, retention, success, and career to support the highest impact international learning designed in the U.S. college and university model: study, service, research, internship, volunteering, and other opportunities that bring college students to a country outside the U.S. with pre-departure, while-abroad, and re-entry support to obtain intentional outcomes. This will require additional partnerships between 2 year and 4 year colleges and universities as well as international universities and study abroad providers. Increasing study abroad participation overall by increasing participation by students from diverse ethnic backgrounds as well as at-risk and first generation college students is a challenge that the field has started on, but there is much more work that needs to be done.