UC budget cuts are putting Education Abroad Programs in serious jeopardy.   

EAP has been funded in the past by the Office of the President (OP). This year, however, the funding principle has been changed. OP’s funding has been drastically cut, and EAP is now largely funded by EAP fees paid by the participating students. OP is proposing that, starting next year, its funding be completely eliminated, and that EAP becomes a self-supporting business unit funded by students’ EAP fees alone.  

What does this mean for students?

First, EAP fees will be increased. We don’t know by how much, but it is clear that the cost of EAP will no longer be comparable with the cost of attending a home campus.

Second, due to the elimination of financial assistance to the local EAP offices, our campus EAP office will not be able to provide the same level of services it has provided in the past, including recruitment and counseling.

Third, the elimination of support for reciprocity students will substantially reduce the number of foreign students visiting our campus. More importantly, this will put UC’s immersion program in jeopardy. Immersion is the program by which UC students take courses provided by a host university for UC credits. Immersion and reciprocity are twin programs that are connected by agreements that UC has concluded with leading universities abroad.

With this drastic change, UC’s EAP is about to be transformed into an expensive, self-sustaining business unit, not much different from outside providers. The Academic Senate and interested faculty are trying to reverse this decision, but students need to voice their opinions.  You will be deprived of the opportunity that UC’s EAP has offered for almost half a century: to learn abroad, experience another culture, and better understand our increasingly interconnected world, all for the same cost as being at UCSB.