Although we sympathize with cash-strapped AU students studying abroad in Europe, we have little desire to echo their complaints. For as long as many of us care to recall, the euro has been stronger than the dollar. Even cursory research could have predicted that the situation was bound to worsen by 2008.
While our impulsive, primordial reaction is to opine for cheaper abroad opportunities, a blanket incitement for a better exchange rate and a stronger dollar is both impractical and insignificant. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy, the primary institutions that regulate the value of the nation's currency, are both in a period of flux. And there's little we can contribute in the way of economic analysis that other, more knowledgeable sources haven't already said. Until politicians rescue the American economy from its impending dive bomb will unrelated costs and price tags - including housing and meal costs in faraway lands, nevertheless at home - become manageable once more.
In the meantime, the AU Abroad office should do as much as it can to assist students who want to study in Europe. Even before the euro walloped the dollar, students had trouble affording their international trips. And short of a call for more scholarship opportunities - more financial support is always welcome, though we recognize AU's own financial situation is less than desirable - the office needs to compromise a bit more.
That effort, as we've editorialized ad nauseam, begins with reevaluating which programs the office does and does not accredit. Oftentimes, it is cheaper for AU students to study in Europe or elsewhere through third-party organizations, some of which AU does not support. But while the office has legitimate concerns - some of the external programs lack sufficient amenities or offer insufficient educational opportunities - its primary purpose is to do as much as it can to help students plan trips to countries they've always dreamed of visiting. To that degree, if AU Abroad ever claims its powerlessness, thereby resigning its efforts because of a disadvantageous foreign exchange rate, it is failing students wholesale.
That said, the poor exchange rate isn't all bad. Maybe the high costs of a semester's stay in Europe will drive students to study in countries lesser traveled, many of which are much cheaper than Paris and London anyway - the latter of which, admittedly, doesn't use the euro but is equally expensive. But while the multicultural benefits of a stay outside of Europe are innumerable, we're disappointed students aren't able to travel where they please. Then again, we've been preaching that one for quite some time too.
