Valuing Student Preferences for Short-Term Study Abroad: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment

Short-term study abroad programs, lasting fewer than three weeks, now account for the majority of U.S. undergraduate study abroad participation, yet little is known about how students value specific program attributes. We implement an online discrete choice experiment among a geographically diverse sample of U.S. undergraduates, varying destination region, program length, cost, seasonal timing, and the allocation of time across educational, recreational, and free activities. Using a mixed logit model, we recover willingness-to-pay (WTP) as the ratio of attribute and price coefficients. Destination and trip length emerge as the primary drivers of demand, while seasonal timing and activity composition also significantly affect preferences. First-generation and low-income students exhibit greater price sensitivity than their peers and place systematically lower value on summer-timed programs, suggesting that scheduling programs around spring break may help broaden access among these students. These results provide quantitative evidence to inform the design of short-term study abroad programs.