Arcadia U. lauded for sending students abroad

Arcadia University, a 2,000-student school in Glenside, sends a higher percentage of its students abroad than any other college in the country, a national report released yesterday says.

So, while large schools such as Columbia, Harvard and New York Universities and the University of Pennsylvania send many more students abroad, some smaller schools such as Arcadia have higher percentages of the student body getting a global educational experience.

Arcadia's distinction was included in the New York-based Institute of International Education's annual "Open Doors" report, which also found that the number of foreign students studying in the United States - 623,805 - has reached a record high after a large dip following 9/11.

"A smaller school can take a more personal approach to resolve whatever might be the obstacles for each student in studying abroad," said Peggy Blumenthal, the institute's chief operating officer. "Arcadia has a long and successful track record of making study abroad available to everybody who goes there."

The institute calculates its percentage by dividing the number of students who studied abroad in 2006-07 by the number of 2006 graduating seniors.

In 2006-07, 494 Arcadia students in all undergraduate classes studied at one of the university's more than 100 locations in 14 countries.

"We were very focused - and have been for a long time - on the importance of global education," said Arcadia president Jerry Greiner.

Arcadia began its study-abroad program in 1948 and saw it grow in the 1960s, with another spurt in the last five years.

The institute's report also found that across the country, more than 173,000 international students enrolled at U.S. colleges for the first time in 2007-08, up 10 percent from the previous year.

"We've completely recovered from 9/11 . . . more than recovered," Blumenthal said.

India sent the most students in 2007-08 - 94,563, up 13 percent from the previous year. China, South Korea, Japan and Canada rounded out the top five countries.

Locally, schools are seeing those increases.

Chinese student enrollment, for example, increased 300 percent this year at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. From fall 2007 to fall 2008, the university saw a 72 percent increase in applications from China, said spokeswoman Dina Silver Pokedoff.

The percentage of international students overall has increased from 3 percent of last year's freshman class to 6 percent of this year's freshman class, she said. The university declined to say how many Chinese students were enrolled.

At Temple, the number of undergraduate students from China more than doubled this year, from 25 in fall 2007 to 53 in fall 2008.

Other countries also are sending growing numbers of students to the United States.

Vietnam showed the largest percentage increase - 45 percent, to 8,769 in fall 2008. Saudi Arabia, Nepal, China and South Korea also had increases of more than 10 percent.

Penn was in the top 20 universities nationwide in hosting international students. At No. 11, it enrolled 4,610 students from other countries last school year.

The most popular fields of study for international students studying in the United States are business and management and engineering.

U.S. students going overseas most frequently study in the United Kingdom, followed by Italy, Spain, France and China. The top fields of study are social sciences and business and management.

At Arcadia, even freshmen are allowed to spend their first semester abroad under a program adopted in 2003 and still unusual. The university also welcomes students from other U.S. schools in its program, although that was not used in calculating its high rate of study abroad.

The United Kingdom is the most popular site, followed by Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Greece, Greiner said.

Study abroad, Greiner said, is important because it helps students learn and feel comfortable in another culture as young adults.

While the university does not require students to study abroad, a curriculum change that took effect this fall says they must have a "global education experience."

That could be working at a Center City clinic serving an ethnic population, or working with the homeless.

"It has to be a different culture than the one you grew up in," said Lori Bauer, Arcadia spokeswoman.

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