American Student Exchange Programs

Each year several thousand American students come to the UK to continue their studies. While some are postgraduate students, attracted here to pursue research under the supervision of a particular individual, or to pursue a Masters programme at a particular institution, others are undergraduates on Junior Year Abroad (JYA) programmes.

Although the flow of students in the opposite direction is not so great, a sizeable number of British students do depart each August to experience the United States for the first time. The majority of these are on American Studies programmes which require a period of study in the USA.

American Student Exchange Programs

Each year those who have completed their stint abroad return home, many of them fascinated and exhilarated by their experiences, with every intention of returning to their adopted country as soon as circumstances and finance permit.

It is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of those who study abroad find the experience agreeable and worthwhile. The reasons for study abroad are as much to do with widening students horizons and cultural experiences as they are to do with subjecting them to new and different approaches to study.

Differences in Costs

For very bright students the existence of prestigious scholarships, particularly at graduate level, has ensured a small but steady flow between the major centres of learning on both sides of the Atlantic. The current President of the United States is but one individual who has benefited from such scholarships in the past.

However, the majority of students do not benefit from scholarships and thus have to meet any additional costs that arise when studying abroad. These additional costs might arise as a result of differences in tuition fees, differences in the cost of maintenance and additional expenditures on travel.

While there is little that can be done about travel costs, or indeed, differences in the cost of living between the UK and the USA, institutional arrangements can be made to overcome differences in tuition costs.

Given the prevailing exchange rate between the pound and the dollar, the tuition costs for a year of study on a Social Science or Arts Programme in a British university might be higher or lower than the corresponding cost of study in an American university.

Typically, the cost is higher in a British university than in an American state university, but lower when compared to the more expensive private American universities.

Exchange Programmes

In order to encourage study abroad many British and American universities have entered into formal exchange programmes with each other. Such exchanges are usually balanced, at least in the first instance.

This then allows each university to waive the fees for incoming students under the exchange without losing any fee income, provided, of course, that participating students leave behind their tuition fees at their home university.

Within the context of such a student exchange, only if one university wants to send more students than the other is there a need for the transfer of tuition income.

The incentive for British universities to enter into exchange programmes of this sort has arisen largely because of the needs of students on four-year American Studies programmes that require a period of study in the USA. Up until now, students on designated four-year degree programmes have had all four years of tuition fees paid for by their local education authority.

In addition, they have qualified for a maintenance grant for the additional year. Others, on designated three-year programmes, who wanted to study abroad for any period have generally had to pay for that period themselves - both the tuition and maintenance costs - unless they were in a university which allowed periods of study abroad within the framework of existing three-year programmes.

Thus, outside of the officially recognised four-year degree programmes, there have been relatively few British students at undergraduate level studying in the USA.

Junior Year Abroad Programmes

In contrast, however, there have been far more American students - over the last two decades at least - wanting to study in the UK. This is no doubt due in large part to differences in absolute size of the British and American higher education systems.

However, it is also attributable to differences in the nature and duration of the British and American undergraduate degrees. The American degrees last four years rather than three, are based on credit accumulation and tend to be less highly structured than their British counterparts.

All of this has meant that they have traditionally provided students with greater choice and flexibility in putting together their programmes of study, including the opportunity of studying for a period of time at another university, either in the USA or elsewhere, and transferring the credit received from that institution back to their home university.

Thus, in the USA, the practice of spending a year abroad - usually the third (i.e. junior) year of undergraduate study - developed into the so-called Junior Year Programme. And British universities have responded to this by welcoming additional students (i.e. over and above the number involved in exchange) on to such programmes.

While studying in the UK, American studies sit alongside their British counterparts, taking exactly the same courses and fulfilling exactly the same course requirements.

At the end of their stay, their home university receives a transcript indicating the courses taken, the number of credits earned for each course, and the course grade. This can then be fed back into the students’ transcripts back home.

Shift Towards Semesters

Despite the emphasis on "year" in the title, JYA programmes also admit students for less than a year, i.e. for one or two terms or a semester. During the last turndown in the US economy (i.e. in the early 1990s) there was an increasing demand from American students to spend a semester rather than a full year of study in British universities.

This coincided with the period when many British institutions were thinking about adopting the semester system, although in the final analysis its adoption was not as widespread as once seemed likely.

Given that those universities which have introduced a semester system have, by and large, superimposed it on to the traditional British academic calendar, with its three-term system, the operation of the semester system in the UK is not nearly as straightforward as in the USA.

For example, the first semester is interrupted by the traditional three-week Christmas vacation and does not end until the last week of January, or even later. The second semester is likewise divided into two unequal parts by the Easter vacation.

The fact that not all British universities are on the semester system means that those American students wanting to come to the UK during the second semester are restricted in their choice of universities.

Obviously entry in January to a British university run along traditional lines, with year-long courses, is out of the question since it would mean entering courses that have already been running for 10 weeks.

Even the first semester is not without its problems since American students who stay until the end have the additional expense of remaining here throughout the Christmas vacation, with the probability that they will arrive back late for the beginning of the second semester at their home university.

The upshot is that students opting to come in the first American semester are likely to stay for only one British term.

Intermediary Organisations

American students who want to study in the UK but attend universities and colleges which do not have formal links with a British institution have two options.

They can apply direct to the British university or college of their choice, or they can apply indirectly through two specialist institutions - Butler University and Beaver College - both of which have extensive programmes with many British universities and colleges. Beaver College is based in Philadelphia, while Butler University is in Indianapolis.

Both have offices in London which maintain contact with their British partners. Students opting to come through the Beaver or Butler programmes are well catered for, with all travel arrangements being made for them and induction on arrival.

Butex

Following the elevation of polytechnics to university status in 1992, British universities and colleges with interests in North America joined together to form Butex, the British Universities Transatlantic Exchange Association.

This replaced two similar bodies, one which had catered exclusively for the old university sector, the other for the former polytechnic sector. The BUTEX mission is to promote mobility between universities and colleges in the UK and the USA and Canada.

In order to achieve this, it promotes UK higher education in North America and acts as a conduit for the exchange of information on current issues among its members.

It represents its members at the annual NAFSA (Association of International Educators) Conference and runs a biennial international conference of its own on issues affecting the higher education relationship between the UK and North America. In addition, it publishes guides to both undergraduate and graduate study in the UK.

BUTEX is therefore an important umbrella organisation for British higher education, particularly in relation to the contacts that it maintains with other organisations such as NAFSA, CBIE (Canadian Bureau of International Education) and CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange).

These contacts enable it to keep its members informed about current and emerging issues in higher education in the USA and Canada.

Given that the special relationship between the UK and the United States is reflected in the relationship between its higher education institutions, it seems quite a natural development that future issues of Educational Courses in Britain will concentrate on both British and American higher educational issues, and that this will be reflected by a change in title.

The Author: Professor J. J. Hughes, Professor of Industrial Economics, University of Kent at Canterbury & Chairman of the Educational Courses in Britain Editorial Steering Committee.

This article first appeared in Educational Courses in Britain