I always knew I wanted to study abroad. I grew up surrounded by stories of my mother’s life in Freiburg, Germany—a small city in the Black Forest where she relocated after finishing her undergraduate degree. Her plan was to work there as a German language translator for a year, but she ended up staying for six more. I love looking back through her old photo albums. I love the glimmer in her eyes when she looks at them with me, the way a glance over my shoulder turns into an hour because she has so many tales to tell. Mom grinning in a beer garden; Mom in leather on the back of a motorcycle; Mom hiking across snow-capped mountains; Mom swimming in a lake with her German friends, many of whom she’s still in regular contact with today.

Last year, in search of that same life-abroad magic, I petitioned the Wesleyan Office of Study Abroad to let me spend the fall 2023 semester in southern Spain, on a previously unapproved program. The petition process, to put it mildly, was not fun. After a series of back-and-forth debates with the Office of Study Abroad, my class dean, and the Director of the Fries Center for Global Studies, I was finally approved to study through IES Abroad Granada in Granada, Spain. I chose Granada for a few reasons: I wanted to be forced to practice my Spanish; I liked the idea of a small city I could actually get to know over the course of a few months; I wanted to continue my study of classical guitar in the place where it was invented; and I didn’t want to do the Vassar-Wesleyan Program in Madrid. This final point—my disinterest in the Vassar-Wesleyan Program—was the crux of the matter for the Office of Study Abroad. I was a real problem. If I went to another Spanish city, they argued, they couldn’t guarantee the “authenticity” of my time abroad.

Let’s back up for a moment. The American idea of studying abroad, especially studying abroad in European countries (where 73% of American students studying abroad end up) has long straddled the line between intercultural global exchange and glorified vacation. The generalized version of study abroad as presented by college brochures and academic roundtables aligns with many of the high-minded ideals of liberal arts education: the values of learning for learning’s sake, of teaching people “how to think” rather than “what to think,” of creating well-rounded students. On the Wesleyan Office of Study Abroad’s own website, study abroad is described as a “meaningful cross-cultural experience [that] sharpens our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world in which we live.” 

All of that is well and good, but from what I can tell, it doesn’t line up with the reality of life abroad for many students who choose to venture overseas. For evidence, scroll through the Instagram page of a friend in Copenhagen or take a look at the flocks of students heading to anglophone cities like Amsterdam or London because they won’t have to learn a new language. Many embrace a jetset lifestyle, forgoing the classroom in favor of a new city every weekend, drawn in by the allure of legendary clubs and Euro-chic thrift shops. Whether a student is part of a Wesleyan pre-approved “authentic” program or not, their day-to-day experience is something they determine for themselves.

Direct enrollment in international universities is becoming increasingly rare, meaning that American students who study abroad typically do so through affiliate programs, like IES Abroad Granada or the Vassar-Wesleyan Program in Madrid, which provide guidance and services for international students. In other words, direct enrollment means being thrown in the deep end; study through an affiliate program means having your hand held.

So what does studying abroad through an affiliate program mean for the “authenticity” of experience? On one hand, affiliate programs remove just about any incentive for students to break out and build relationships with locals in their adopted country. They often conduct their own self-contained classes, manage housing, and host extracurricular activities designated specifically for American international students. Whether they mean to or not, affiliate programs pick up the American college bubble and replicate it overseas. And that makes a lot of sense! It’s scary to try and belong in a new place, so we gravitate towards people who know where we came from. Still, exploring a foreign country with your new study-abroad besties from Amherst and Villanova is not exactly the deep immersion and “meaningful cross-cultural experience” we’ve all heard so much about.

On the other hand, third-party study abroad programs are vital for removing accessibility barriers and giving students an equal shot at the advantages of a global education. In terms of race and ethnicity, as of 2023, nearly 70% of U.S. study abroad students were white, compared to only a measly 5.3% Black and 11.9% Hispanic or Latino. Affiliate program systems like self-contained classes and planned housing make studying abroad more feasible for students who have never left the country, students on financial aid, and students who are the first in their families to attend college, who disproportionately tend to be students of color.

And then, of course, there’s the cost. It’s no secret that studying abroad requires a set of social and economic advantages that many college students don’t have. Socio-economic privilege directly impacts who gets to study abroad and where they get to do it. According to the International Institute of Education, the overall average cost of studying abroad lands around $18,000 per semester—nearly a quarter of the average American household income in 2022. But then, it is important to remember that the majority of Wesleyan students do not come from an average American household. Less than half of Wesleyan students (38% as of 2021) receive financial aid, which means that more than half of Wesleyan students—around 1,830 of us—can afford to dish out $66,716 in tuition alone every year. Compared to $66,716, $18,000 sounds pretty sweet, right? Wrong. As I learned during my prolonged battle of wills with the Office of Study Abroad, Wesleyan’s abroad pricing policy is different from that of its peer institutions like Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Williams.

Wesleyan charges full University tuition for its students, no matter where in the world they are. This way, students on financial aid who are studying abroad are still likely to end up paying more than the program itself costs. The monetary difference between the actual price of a study abroad affiliate program and the price a student pays to attend Wesleyan—around $48,700 if the student is paying full tuition—goes straight into Wesleyan’s pocket.

My friend from Bowdoin who I met studying in Granada last fall explained the difference to me: the total price tag of his time abroad was about a fourth of the tuition he paid to study on campus in Maine. For me, it was the same, if not more. I felt I had stumbled upon a “gotcha moment.” Where does that extra money go? Aren’t Wesleyan students in effect paying somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000 for a Wesleyan stamp of approval on their study abroad course credits? Isn’t that blatantly crazy?

Upon further reflection, there are some solid justifications for Wesleyan’s home-school tuition policy: In many ways, it levels the playing field by guaranteeing that any student who can afford to study at Wesleyan can also afford the baseline cost of studying abroad. Plus, the revenue from students going abroad sometimes circles around and makes it possible for the University to offer more financial aid. Still, the price tag is hard to wrap my head around. Not only do programs cost money, but students are often expected to pay for their own flights, food, and living expenses. A quick look through the Wesleyan Student Program Evaluations webpage will show that returning students regularly suggest a personal budget of $3,000 to $5,000 for supplemental travel and fun. That’s a tall order for anyone.

So. If I’m against the price, the social culture, and the self-contained quality of study abroad, why did I do it? 

The short answer is that I had an incredible time. I wouldn’t call it world-altering, but I learned a lot: My Spanish improved tenfold, I made wonderful new friends, and I explored some corners of the world that I never could have imagined. 

The long answer brings us back to that holy grail of “authenticity.” Perhaps the golden era of cultural exchange that my mother enjoyed in Germany simply doesn’t exist anymore. Or, more likely, the circumstances of a college semester abroad in 2024 don’t allow it to exist. My mom lived in Germany for seven years; I lived in Granada for only four months. The evolution from tourist to local takes longer than that.

By far, my experiences that the Wesleyan Office of Study Abroad would characterize as “authentic”—my guitar lessons with a local flamenco guitarist and the Spanish boxing gym I joined down the street from my dorm—were ones I sought out on my own. To me, there’s something perverse and reminiscent of colonial exoticism in branding another culture as “authentic” or “inauthentic,” especially when the onus is ultimately on the student to build a relationship with the place they’re in. Whether I was in Madrid or Granada, the reality of my experience was up to me.

On my first day in Granada, the director of the program urged us to stay in the city as much as possible. “If you’re going to be in a place,” he said, “Be there.” A college semester abroad is a taste—just a taste—of the world beyond our national borders. Over the course of my four months in Spain, I got to intimately know a beautiful city and practiced speaking an equally beautiful language. I also drank sangria on the beach with my American friends. The binary is not so simple. Our objective in studying abroad shouldn’t be to reach some higher point of “authenticity” or integration, but to practice pushing against the borders of what we consider our world to be.

Sophie Jager can be reached at sjager@wesleyan.edu.