Historically, African American college students have been far less likely than their White peers to spend a semester or two studying abroad. Financial considerations are undoubtedly a major reason for the shortfall.
But over the past decade, African Americans are increasing their share of the pool of students who travel abroad to take classes at colleges and universities across the globe. In 2005-06 academic year, 3.5 percent of all American college students who studied abroad were Black. Since that time the percentage of Blacks in the study abroad pool has increased each year.
According to the Institute of International Education, in the 2011-12 academic year, Blacks made up 5.3 percent of the total of 283,332 students who studied abroad. Thus, more than 15,000 African American college students took advantage of study abroad opportunities that year.
I particularly find this article interesting since my daughter is during film study at the American University in Paris, France.