International Student Exchange history

In 1991, the David L. Boren federal grant and scholarship program was instituted in light of the aggressive need for an increased presence abroad.

By 1999, the distribution had shifted again, with most students coming from (in descending order) China, Japan, India, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, and Mexico.

In response to criticisms that study abroad only benefits certain types of students, the Department of State created the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship program as part of the International Opportunity Act of 2000.

See M. Leonard, C. Snewing, and C. Stead, Public Diplomacy (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2002).

The re-education programs in post-war Germany and Japan stand out as the most concentrated efforts to use exchanges to promote democratic values abroad by using the US as an example, although Iraq after 2003 was in some ways a similar testing ground.

China’s network of Confucius Institutes, begun in 2004, now boasts over 320 locations in around 100 nations worldwide, and this is entirely designed to familiarise the rest of the world with the belief systems and cultures of China.

Bolstered by increased program participation through 2008, the global recession was successfully weathered under the leadership of President and CEO, William L. (Bill) Gertz, a former AIFS marketing executive.

Christine Lin is the CEO of Cambridge Network since 2009, directing the exchange experience of 2,500 students and 240 high schools in 39 states.

See Giles Scott-Smith, ‘The Heineken Factor? Using Exchanges to extend the reach of US Soft Power,’ American Diplomacy, June 2011, available at <http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2011/0104/comm/scottsmith_heineken.html>

The sector contributed $42 billion to the United States economy in 2017, according to the United States Department of Commerce; this does not include the additional revenue from student spending for food and clothes.

In all, the United States welcomed 1.09 million international students in 2018, according to the 2018 Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education.”

In 2019, a smaller exchange agency notified their student families, host families, and high schools that the company could not pay their tuition fees.