Travel Has Long Been an Elite Educational Advantage. Public Schools Can Change That.
For generations, international travel, summer programs and other forms of experiential education have been subtle advantages of growing up with financial means. Families with greater financial resources can give their children opportunities to spend time in unfamiliar places, encounter different places, practice languages and develop confidence outside familiar environments. These are all experiences that can be difficult to recreate in a classroom and even harder to access for families who cannot afford them.
In an A.I. driven economy, those experiences are becoming more consequential. As artificial intelligence and automation reshape the workforce, young people will need distinctly human skills: the ability to think critically, adapt, communicate across differences, work through ambiguity, approach problems with curiosity and creativity and exercise judgment. If these experiences help young people develop the skills they need to thrive in an A.I.-driven economy, then shouldn’t every student have the opportunity to develop them?
Public school students deserve equitable access to those opportunities, both domestically and internationally. Travel gives students a chance to put these skills under pressure in the real world. It asks them to step outside what is familiar, engage with people whose cultures, histories, perspectives and lived experiences may differ from their own, solve problems independently and see the world from different perspectives. Those experiences can shape not only how students understand the world, but how confidently they see themselves moving through it.
International travel offers a particularly powerful opportunity for young people to experience another culture firsthand, navigate new languages and customs and develop a broader understanding of the world. But global citizenship is not defined by how far a student travels. Meaningful experiences across the United States can also expose students to new histories, communities, perspectives and ways of life, deepening their understanding of both the world and their place within it.
Students are not simply observing new places. A student may know how to analyze a problem, but working in an unfamiliar cultural environment requires them to determine which questions to ask, whose perspective they may be missing, how to communicate when assumptions differ and how to adjust when an initial approach fails. They learn how to engage thoughtfully with the people and communities around them. The strongest programs also encourage students to put that learning into practice by contributing their time, energy and critical thinking through service and community engagement.
Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that most workers will need to develop higher-level skills to solve complex problems, communicate effectively, approach tasks creatively and manage others. They will also need to use, analyze and interpret data. The World Economic Forum has similarly identified analytical thinking, resilience, leadership, agility, flexibility, creativity and motivation among the core skills workers will need alongside technical expertise in A.I. and big data.
That distinction matters. Preparing young people for an economy increasingly shaped by A.I. cannot focus only on teaching them how to use new technology. Schools will also need to help students develop the discernment to know when to trust a tool, the adaptability to respond when it fails, the communication skills to work across differences and the confidence to navigate problems that technology cannot solve for them. Travel and experiential learning give students opportunities to practice many of those skills in ways that cannot always be replicated inside a classroom.
The experiential advantage
Yet access to those experiences remains deeply uneven. International travel and global learning programs, in particular, have historically been more accessible to students from families with greater financial resources. Domestic travel can present similar barriers when transportation, lodging, programming and other costs make participation difficult. This creates a less visible dimension of education inequality. Two students can sit in a classroom with equally rigorous curricula and still graduate with very different levels of exposure to the world beyond them.
Public schools have an important role to play in changing that. In recent years, schools have begun investing more intentionally in travel and global learning, so access is not determined solely by what a family can afford. In 2016, for example, the District of Columbia Public Schools announced that it would fully fund international travel for students in the eighth and eleventh grades. More than 800 students have since participated in its Global Education program.
In a study that included interviews with participants and educators, researchers found that participating students reported stronger peer relationships, an increased interest in attending college and greater motivation to communicate with people from different cultures. Even the challenge of communicating in a foreign language proved beneficial, requiring students to become more flexible, confident and willing to work through discomfort. Students also reported a deeper interest in learning a foreign language.
That is part of what makes these experiences so valuable. They are not separate from the academic and personal development happening inside a school. They deepen it.
At Democracy Prep, rigorous instruction is the foundation of how scholars are prepared for college and the world beyond it. But preparing young people for what comes next also means creating opportunities that engage the full spectrum of child development. Social-emotional learning is an important part of that work because academic knowledge alone does not teach a young person how to build meaningful relationships, communicate across differences or keep going when something is difficult.
Those skills become even more important as A.I. changes what work looks like and increases the premium placed on the abilities that remain deeply human. A student who has learned to communicate through a language barrier, collaborate with unfamiliar peers or work through an unfamiliar problem is practicing independence and developing a habit of mind that can travel with them into college, the workplace and an economy that will continue to change.
Travel gives scholars a chance to practice those skills in real time. Through Democracy Prep’s Global Citizens program, scholars have traveled internationally to countries including Ecuador, Japan, Senegal, South Africa and South Korea. These experiences immerse scholars in new environments, expose them to different languages and cultures, challenge them to think critically and give them opportunities to participate in meaningful community service alongside the people and communities they visit.
That exposure matters within a school community, too. Learning to understand and communicate with people who are different from you helps build the acceptance and celebration of differences that strong school cultures depend on. It strengthens empathy, curiosity, confidence, resilience and a sense of belonging. Those are not secondary outcomes. They are part of the educational capital that scholars carry with them through college, into their careers and back into their communities.
Research involving first-generation college students has also found that students who participated in study abroad had higher graduation rates, stronger cumulative GPAs and graduated sooner than peers who did not. For students who may be the first in their families to attend college, opportunities that build independence, adaptability and confidence before they arrive on campus can help strengthen the skills they will draw upon once they get there.
The case for this work, however, is bigger than any single study or travel program. If elite education has historically been about more than what happens in the classroom, public education should be, too. Public schools are responsible for preparing young people for a future we already know will require them to think critically, communicate effectively, adapt quickly and work alongside people whose backgrounds and experiences differ from their own. A.I. makes that responsibility more urgent, not less. As technology becomes more capable, schools must be equally intentional about developing the qualities that allow young people to think independently, exercise judgment, build relationships and lead.
That preparation begins with excellent schools and high-quality, rigorous instruction. It is strengthened through social-emotional learning, attention to wellness and a commitment to the whole child. And it becomes even more powerful when scholars have opportunities to take what they are learning beyond the classroom and test it against the complexity of the world around them.
Public school students deserve access to travel experiences that expand what they know, challenge what they think and give them a more tangible sense of how much of the world is available to them.
International experiences can open doors to cultures and perspectives students may never otherwise encounter. Domestic travel can do the same by exposing students to the extraordinary diversity of histories, communities and experiences within their own country.
If the future of work will reward those who can make good decisions amid uncertainty, understand different perspectives and determine what to do when there is no obvious solution, then those skills should not be another advantage reserved for children who can afford to acquire them outside school. Public education has the opportunity to bring the wider world into reach.
As technology continues to evolve, the distinctly human skills that allow us to think critically, connect with others, adapt, contribute and lead will only become more important. Giving more young people the opportunity to travel, experience unfamiliar places and learn from people beyond their immediate communities is one powerful way public schools can help prepare them for that future.
