Latin American Countries Use Study Abroad to Further International Goals

 

Latin America has one of the lowest student mobility rates in the world, accounting for only 6 percent of the students who study abroad worldwide. An article published last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses Latin America’s efforts to internationalize higher education in the region. Brazil’s Scientific Mobility Program is on the forefront of these efforts and is already halfway to its goal set in 2011 to send 101,000 students abroad by 2015. Mexico has recently announced that it intends to send 100,000 students for study abroad in the United States by 2018. 

Mexico hosted the Conference of the Americas on International Education this month in Monterey, during which IIE’s leading expert on global development, Steven Dorsey, led a discussion on Internationalizing Higher Education through Scholarship Programs. The region has significantly increased such investments during the past five years as a means to promote economic prosperity and capacity building.