It's Better to Stay at Home by Mary

It's Better to Stay at Home by Mary - March 2016 Scholarship Essay

While studying abroad is a great experience for a vast majority of college students, it isn’t ideal to require all students to travel as a graduation requirement. Many students already take it upon themselves to accept the challenge to live in a different country than they are born in at some point in their college career. Studying abroad is a very expensive and time consuming adventure that will limit many potential students in furthering their education.
Forcing all students to leave their native country at some point during their college career will put hundreds, if not thousands of students in difficult situations nationwide. Many college aged adults have either full or part time jobs they would have to quit or temporarily leave for the duration of time they are away. That job is potentially the sole payment option for that student’s college tuition. For the older adults returning to school, many have families of their own that are relying on them to provide food and shelter. There’s no way a parent would be able to leave their family for multiple months at a time to travel to another country. Especially if they are an only parent, there would be no one to care for the children for that length of time.
On many occasions, companies will pay for their employees to go back to school as long as they work for that company alongside taking classes. This opportunity could become very limited if the company would be required to pay for a student’s expensive tuition while abroad and not have them at work either. Companies supporting their employees to further their education will not accept this change in requirements.
Some of the degrees students pursue require them to take a course or two in a foreign language, but not all degrees have this requirement. This will create immense problems for the students that don’t speak the same language as the family they are residing with. They might have the option to study the language before they depart. But that could possibly prolong their graduation date by taking courses that are unrelated to their major, as well as adding costs.
Studying abroad alone costs twice as much per semester as a regular course at a private school; an average of $31,270. That is a plethora of money to be requiring of people to pay on top of the already sky rocketing prices of post high school education. Many families struggle to pay the regular tuition prices, taking out student loans, scouring for scholarships and paying a lot of it out of pocket. Requiring students pay an additional $30,000 or more will only worsen our country’s debt problem, with students and families taking out more and more student loans each year. Or even limit proletariat families from sending their children to college because they aren’t able to pay the cost of studying abroad.
There are many great things students can learn from living in an entirely new place for multiple months on end, but they should have the choice if they want to pursue that. Colleges should highly encourage students and create as many opportunities as possible for them to study abroad, but not require it as a graduation requirement for all majors.