The Institute of International Education recently published updated statistics relating to foreign exchange education in the world. I’m pleased to announce that the US-Italian educational relationship has crossed a significant threshold: more than 30,000 US students studied abroad in Italian territory for academic credit in the 2013/14 school year, the most recent period for which there is complete data. That’s up 4.4% from the same period the year before and means 10.2% of all study abroad students in Italy were from the US during that period. It also makes Italy the second most popular destination for US study abroad, behind the English-speaking United Kingdom.
Residents of California will also be pleased to know that the Golden State was the most prolific host of foreign exchange students coming into the US in the 2014/15 year. See below for complete data.
This building momentum in the US-Italian educational exchange is significant for many reasons, not least because it shows the growing popularity of the Italian language among American students. Through this new data we can deduce that Italy is the most popular destination for American students to study abroad in a foreign language. For more information why Italian is a great language choice for American students, click here. With next year’s report, let’s hope that these numbers keep bounding upward. Avanti!