Grant Enhances Study Abroad

NC State students will have more opportunities to participate in international sustainability projects thanks to a grant awarded last week by the president’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative.

The $25,000 grant will help underwrite the development of a new course and study-abroad program for first-year and minority agriculture students at NC State in partnership with Universidad de Costa Rica. The program will leverage the university’s relationship with industry partners in Costa Rica, including Chiquita, People First Tourism and CincoCeibas.

President Obama launched the new initiative to underscore the critical relationship between educational opportunity and regional prosperity. Its goal is to more than double the number of students studying, training and researching abroad in the Western Hemisphere by the end of the decade.

Currently, 40,000 U.S. students study in Latin America and the Caribbean and 64,000 Latin American and Caribbean students study in the United States each year.

To implement the President’s vision, the Department of State established a public-private partnership with NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the world’s largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education, and Partners of the Americas, a leading voluntary and development agency.