UW-Eau Claire again among top study abroad schools

Based on 2022-23 statistics, 410 UW-Eau Claire students studied abroad, ranking the university 12th in the country among public and private master’s-level schools. UW-Eau Claire was 15th in the previous year’s ranking.

Colleen Marchwick, director of the UW-Eau Claire Center for International Education, says the high ranking shows the university’s commitment to study abroad and the work of many faculty and staff across campus, including Advising, Retention and Career Center advisors, faculty advisors and leaders, Blugold Central, CIE and the Intercultural Immersions Office.

“We have a long history of study abroad at UW-Eau Claire dating back to 1950,” Marchwick says. “UWEC’s commitment to international experiences has been a part of our institutional identity so much that we have invested in grants and scholarships for study abroad. We have study abroad offered all terms — yearlong, semester, Winterim and summer — to accommodate students’ schedules. And our faculty value study abroad and encourage students to pursue it and offer students meaningful credit for the coursework they take abroad.”

UW-Eau Claire is ranked 18th in the master’s-level category for mid-length duration (a quarter or semester) programs studying abroad, with 140 students, after ranking 17th the previous year. UW-Eau Claire is the only master’s-granting public university in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois on the list.

The university is 13th in the country in the short-term category, with 273 students participating, compared to 20th in the previous ranking.

UW-Eau Claire has 56 study abroad programs in 33 countries, with Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom being the most popular destinations. The top academic majors for study abroad are business, biology and health, and foreign languages.

Marchwick is proud of the new Open Doors participation numbers, but added the university still has room for improvement.

“The percentage of men and students of color are below our campus populations,” Marchwick says. “Our baseline goal is to achieve parity between our campus populations and our study abroad participation. There is still work to do.”