In a historic move to support the international education of America’s college students, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed H.R. 1469, the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act.

The legislation, introduced by Reps. Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record) (D - Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (news, bio, voting record) (R - Fla.), calls for the creation of an innovative public- private partnership to administer a national study abroad program with an ambitious mandate: to ensure that at least 1 million American college students will study abroad annually in 10 years’ time. The legislation gives particular attention to making participation in study abroad available to the widest possible spectrum of students and to expanding study abroad opportunities in less-common destinations, especially in the developing world.

The idea for a national study abroad program had its start with the vision of the late Senator Paul Simon who, before his death in 2003, worked to raise awareness of the need to ensure that the next generation of Americans is prepared with global knowledge and skills. A bipartisan federal commission subsequently recommended a national effort to dramatically increase study abroad by Americans.

The Senate is expected to take up the legislation soon. The Senate version of the bill, S. 991, was introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D - Ill.) and Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record) (R - Minn.) and has garnered 37 co-sponsors.

NAFSA: Association of International Educators is the world’s largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education.

Contact: Ursula Oaks of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, +1-202-737-3699 x253

SOURCE NAFSA: Association of International Educators

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Friday, June 8, 2007 at 1:32 am and is filed under Education News, Study Abroad. Tags: College, Education News, Student, Study, Study Abroad, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.