Chile Voted Favorite South American Destination for U.S. Students

A growing number of college students from the United States spend a year abroad, pursuing careers from political science to the arts, and gaining a wealth of world-knowledge in the process. Chile appears to be a growing favorite among them.

A study conducted by Ranking International via the International Institute of Education showed an eight percent increase in students who studied abroad in 2005, polling students from 921 U.S. universities. The results show that Chile is now the most coveted destination in South America, trailing behind just Mexico and Costa Rica in all of Latin America.

Allan Goodman, director of IIE, said that “after the events of September 11, U.S. students showed increasing concern with the world beyond North America. We also saw an expanding number of grants and university programs to stimulate interest in study abroad.”

While traditional destinations such as Italy, France and the United Kingdom still top the charts, they have not seen the increase that Latin America and Asia have seen.

Interestingly, there has even been a drop between one and five percent in study abroad to English-speaking countries such as the U.K., Ireland and Australia.