Passport event readies U of M students to study abroad

Nearly 200 University of Minnesota students are about to get their first passports.

The students took part in Passport Factory, a partnership between the university's Learning Abroad Center and the nonprofit Council on International Educational Exchange, which runs several study abroad programs.

Through the program, students who've never had a passport can get one without having to pay the $55 to $165 fees.

Thursday morning, they filed into a large room in the back of the Walter Library, clutching envelopes filled with photos, birth certificates and passport applications. At long tables, postal workers helped the students complete the paperwork.

"Talking to my other friends, they never did it. They're all like, 'I wish I would've done it,'" said Jalisa Moore, 21, a communications studies major. "And I don't want to have that 'I wish I would've done that.'"

Moore was encouraged by her family and by mentors at the university to study abroad. She jumped at the opportunity for a free passport.

The program, which began in 2014, intends to help 10,000 students across the country get passports by 2020. Minnesota is one of several schools participating, and Thursday's event marked the school's first CIEE passport event at the school.

Sarah Tschida is the assistant director of programming at the university's Learning Abroad Center. She says university data shows that the largest number students who study abroad are middle-class, white women. That's true nationally, too. Open Doors, an organization that tracks international study data, said that in 2014, 65.3 percent of students who went abroad were women, 74.3 percent were white.

Tschida said the center's goal is to increase the number of students going abroad and diversify the applicant pool. She hopes the Passport Factory project will help do that.

"Students are able to use financial aid and scholarships for study abroad experiences, but a passport is something a student has to pay for out of pocket before they've applied for a program, before they receive any sort of financial aid," she said. "So that $135 is a big barrier for a lot of students."

The university invited first-generation students, students of color and students who receive financial aid to participate in the passport program.

Thuy Doan was a refugee and the first in her immediate family to go to college. Now a University of Minnesota graduate, she works at the Learning Abroad Center.

"In a way, I'm seeing myself in a lot of these students and their excitement," she said. "Hopefully they're able to overcome other barriers, convincing their family members that this is a good idea, that this is a great move for them."

Doan said a similar program helped her get a passport. She ended up studying in Japan and, later, in France.

She remembers being surprised when her host mother in France referred to her as "the little American." After spending much of her life identifying herself as Vietnamese-American, it changed the way she viewed herself.

"Being able to see that as a student with dual identities in the U.S., I think, is important," she said. "I think the connection, then, for these students that are coming from a lot of multicultural backgrounds to be able to experience that — and to be able to see diversity in another light — is very important."

Lucy Cheng is jumping at that chance.

The 18-year-old family science major from Minneapolis submitted her passport application and was already planning her next steps in spending a semester abroad.

"I'm actually excited, I'm actually very excited," she said. "I just got one step down. I just need a few more steps and then I'm on my way."

Students should receive their new passports in about six weeks.