Workloads and expectations for study-abroad professionals have increased significantly, but salaries remain relatively low, according to a new survey by the Forum on Education Abroad.
Among the findings of the Pathways to the Profession Survey 2008, more than half of the respondents described their offices as being understaffed relative to their current caseloads, while more than 40 percent said they “may be on the threshold of not having enough staff to meet predicted growth.”
Eighty-five percent of those surveyed said they had experienced an increase in student participation and in programming over the last five years.
Respondents listed a variety of strategies for dealing with the growth, including closing programs that drain resources, using fees to support program expansions, and convincing administrators that “if they were serious about internationalization, they had to invest serious resources.”
At the same time, the survey found that study-abroad advisers earned a mean annual salary of $34,341, while study-abroad directors’ salaries ranged from less than $35,000 to more than $100,000.
The forum, a consortium of American and overseas colleges and outside education-abroad providers, solicited respondents through newsletter announcements, direct e-mail messages to members, and postings on study-abroad Web sites. Some 110 colleges and providers responded to the first portion of the survey, which sought institutional perspectives, while 309 individuals participated in its second portion.
Follow On Hiring through your favorite RSS reader: