During the 2016-2017 school year, the Office of off Campus Studies and Exchanges (OCSE) launched the “Fall Into Study Abroad” campaign. (Previously covered by The Skidmore News: click here for first coverage, click here for second coverage and here for our most recent coverage from earlier in the semester). The question left to ask is: did the incentive really work?
As reported earlier in the semester, about 30 students decided to study abroad in the fall because of the incentive. This has led the OCSE to conclude that the incentive worked.
This fall, 145 students studied abroad compared to the 121 students last year. The increase in fall study abroad coincided with a decrease in spring study abroad. This spring, only 205 students will be studying off campus while last year 247 studied off campus. The OCSE’s goal of encouraging more students to consider studying abroad during the first semester seems to have worked.
Overall, slightly fewer students are studying abroad this year, but “we are glad to see our enrollments remain healthy despite there being significantly fewer students [57] in the junior class, which is our main cohort of off-campus study participants,” said Cori Flilson, Director, Off-Campus Study & Exchanges.
Even though the incentive effectively encouraging more students to study off-campus in the fall this semester, Filson said that she has been told that the incentive will not be offered for Fall 2018: “The incentive was definitely a driving factor for the increase,” but the OCSE also has a campaign to educate students about studying abroad in the fall that they plan to continue promoting for years to come, in the hope that Skidmore can sustain a long-term interest.