Study Abroad: Impact on Student Success

Overview

• 4,254 students studied abroad between Fall 2004 and Fall 2019.
• 90% of Study Abroad students returned to campus from the Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, and Fall 2013 cohorts. (if they didn’t previously graduate or graduate while abroad)
• Of that 90%, 92% graduated.

Top 10 Locations

Sex

Ethnicity

Pell Eligibility

First Term Abroad

Impact on GPA

• In the term following their Study Abroad experience (excluding Summer), Freshmen starters who went abroad increased their term GPA, on average, by about 0.1 points more than Freshmen starters who did not go abroad between their 4th and 7th terms, when controlling for the students’ cumulative GPA beforehand. The 0.1 increase holds for both students who went abroad one term as well as two terms.
• Neither Pell eligibility nor HUS membership (Historically Underrepresented Minorities) were statistically significant additions to the model.

We can model this relationship as follows:

\[ \operatorname{Next Term GPA} = \alpha + \beta_{1}(\operatorname{Prior Cum. GPA}) + \beta_{2}(\operatorname{N terms abroad}_{\operatorname{1\ Term}}) + \beta_{3}(\operatorname{N terms abroad}_{\operatorname{2\ Term}}) \]

The model explains about 30% of the variance in the next term’s GPA.

Characteristic	Beta	95% CI1	p-value
Prior Cum. GPA	0.89	0.80, 1.0	<0.001
Terms Abroad
Zero	—	—
1 Term	0.11	0.02, 0.20	0.022
2 Term	0.10	0.02, 0.18	0.017
1 CI = Confidence Interval

Units Earned Abroad

Overall

College

Department

Major

Ethnicity

Pell Eligibility

GPAs Abroad

Duration

Ethnicity

Sex

Pell Eligibility

Cohort

Pell Eligibility

Before 2012, there was a relationship between Study Abroad participation and Pell eligibility. Now roughly the same proportion of Pell-eligible and non-eligible students participate in Study Abroad, either for one or two semesters.

Impact on Graduation

• For every point increase in a student’s prior cumulative GPA, we multiply the odds of graduating by 4.9.¹
• If the student went abroad for 1 term, we multiply the odds of graduating by 3.1.
• If the student went abroad for 2 terms, we multiply the previous odds of graduating by 1.9.

\[ \log\left[ \frac { P( \operatorname{grad} = \operatorname{1} ) }{ 1 - P( \operatorname{grad} = \operatorname{1} ) } \right] = \alpha + \beta_{1}(\operatorname{Prior Cum. GPA}) + \beta_{2}(\operatorname{N Terms Abroad}_{\operatorname{1\ Term}}) + \beta_{3}(\operatorname{N Terms Abroad}_{\operatorname{2\ Term}}) \]

Characteristic	OR1	95% CI1	p-value
Prior Cum. GPA	4.90	3.24, 7.58	<0.001
Terms Abroad
Zero	—	—
1 Term	3.09	1.68, 6.08	<0.001
2 Term	1.91	1.19, 3.11	0.008
1 OR = Odds Ratio, CI = Confidence Interval

 

Graduation Rates

Ethnicity

Pell Eligibility

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1. Odds ratios in logistic regression are not as intuitive as probability. This resource may assist with interpretation.↩

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