Senate is expected to pass legislation as early as Saturday that will encourage more undergraduate students to study abroad. The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act would increase funding for college students and study abroad programs across the country.
The program would increase over 10 years those who study abroad from the current 200,000 students to 1 million, meaning about half of all college graduates would have studied abroad, said Jennifer Poulakidas, vice president of congressional and governmental affairs for the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
The program would focus on encouraging study abroad programs to nontraditional students such as pre-med, engineering and other majors outside of liberal arts, which is currently home to the bulk of study abroad participants, Poulakidas said.
The University's Study Abroad Office did not respond to messages left by The Daily Texan.
The program also intends to help students who do not study abroad as much, such as minorities and low-income students, as well as encourage students to consider non-European destinations including Asia, South America and Africa, Poulakidas said.
Should the bill pass, students will receive one-fourth of the foundation's $80 million in grants while the remaining three-fourths will go to colleges to make studying abroad more accessible.
The House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill last June and is anticipating it to pass through the Senate at the end of the week. The Senate opted to take a cloture vote, meaning three-fifths of the Senate voted to expedite the process of decision-making on the bill, overriding the possibility of a filibuster.
In anticipation of the bill's passage, the Center for Capacity Building in Study Abroad was first announced Tuesday in Washington, D.C., according to the center's Web site. The center was created to help institutions cope with increasing demand for quality study abroad experiences and will be managed by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the Association of International Educators.
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