Cornerstone University is beginning to really emphasize study abroad trips.

There are professors who lead study abroad trips every year and some majors, such as Spanish and humanities, require students to study abroad in order to complete their degree. Spanish majors have to complete a semester in Spain and humanities majors have to go to Oxford, England, for a few weeks in the summer.

But why should students go abroad if they don’t want to?

Provost Rick Ostrander said he would like to see students go on “a three or more week study abroad experience,” during their years at CU “to expose students to the world outside the United States.” He said the trip would also “prepare students for global influence.”

Being a global influencer can be important, but many times traveling abroad is a global budget buster. In addition, not everyone wants to be a global influencer, leave the country or even leave their state.

The humanities requirement to go to Oxford, England to complete an Oxford tutorial during the summer will hinder a student’s ability to work throughout the summer in order to save up and pay for enrollment at CU.

In addition, some students are married or wait until the summer to get married and could find it difficult to be apart from their loved one for such a long time.

To address the elephant in the room, college students are known to be financially broke. Some students are unable to get additional loans to cover study abroad expenses or are reluctant to take on more college debt.

There are major benefits to studying abroad. Humanities Division Chair Michael Pasquale said the summer Oxford trip will “challenge students academically,” and help students to understand another culture. He also said students go to Spain because CU does not have the extra classes and faculty to complete the major. Plus, he said being immersed in a language would “really hone their skills” in a language.

However, not everyone can afford such a trip.

Pasquale said that if a student couldn’t afford the trip, other arrangements can be made.

“If they can’t go, we are not going to force them to go,” Pasquale said.

Ostrander said that if CU requires students to go on a study abroad trip, they would not be able to opt out.

“If the university decides that a student needs to have an international study experience to be truly prepared for global influence, then such an experience would be required for students,” he said.

Ostrander said he realizes that funding is the main reason why students do not go on study abroad trips and that “we will need to find ways to keep the costs as low as possible, [and] hopefully, find some external funding sources to help students out,” if study-abroad trips become more of a requirement. He also said that CU “will need to find ways to subsidize student travel.”

The provost said that CU is not currently working on a study abroad requirement, but “at this moment, we’re just trying to provide more opportunities for students to do so. Also, we’re looking at building some sophomore year programming that will begin preparing students for cross-cultural engagement.”

But does that mean that an education at CU is not good enough and we need to have global influence? What about all the CU alumni who never studied abroad during their years are CU - were they not equipped to influence globally?

America is so culturally diverse that all a student has to do now in days is go to a different neighborhood or another state to learn about another culture.

In addition, when a student enrolls at CU, he or she gets the most important tool needed to have global influence sitting right on the coach: a computer. If someone wants to change the world, he or she gets on the World Wide Web.

Yes, a global experience would be ideal. And yes, if someone has the means and drive to go, they will learn a lot from the experience. However, whether a student goes abroad or not, staying within U.S. borders does not make he or she any less equipped to globally influence the world.