Posted on Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 11:28 am

As part of the United States’ mission to build foreign exchanges with countries around the world, Indonesia has been the next focus for bilateral trade and cultural exchanges. Last year, US President Obama announced that the US will spend $165 million over 5 years on this issue alone – and they meant it.

The United States has worked together with Indonesia for over 50 years on the Fulbright Program that works with Indonesians to promote English proficiency, university development, advance technology, improve civil society, draw religious influence into the mainstream, promote scholarships, and reach younger and broader audience as explained on the US government’s Fulbright site.

Now, the United States is expanding its educational exchanges in order to further promote this partnership. As described by President Obama, the current target is to double the number of Indonesian students studying in the United States. Most of this is done through educational fairs where students are welcome to attend. With more than 50 US universities at these fairs, potential Indonesian international students bound to study in the United States speak with recruiters, gather information, and discuss the how-to’s.

But this is just the beginning. The popular perception for Indonesians is that obtaining a student visa is near to impossible. The US government along with American universities are working on changing this image. In fact, according to statistics, approximately 90% of Indonesian that applied for a student visa were successfully able to study in the US as an international student. Changing this image and reaching out to these students is crucial. This comes as each year the number of Indonesians studying in the US drops – last year there was an 8% drop in student enrolled compared to the year before which had just under 7,000 international students.

Posted by Jennifer Frankel

Jennifer is the International Director at International Student Insurance. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and England, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.