INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL TRASFORMATION

The Fundacion Universitaria del Area Andina (AREANDINA) is an institution of higher education with more than 35 years committed to the training of professionals with the highest qualities. Founded in 1983, AREANDINA is a multi-campus institution, with campuses in Bogotá, Pereira, and Valledupar, as well as a presence in more than 80% of the national territory, through its online and distance academic programs. With more than 80 programs including technicians, technologists, undergraduate, and graduate (including a master's program) in face-to-face and virtual modality, AREANDINA seeks to reach all of Colombia, with the firm conviction of providing quality higher education to those who otherwise would not have access to it. Reflection of this is the fact that more than 60% of the student population belong to low socioeconomic strata (between 1 and 3).
AREANDINA recognizes the importance of internationalization in the training of professionals with global thinking, for which the National Directorate of International Relations has led a comprehensive strategy focused on the different aspects that encompass the internationalization of higher education: International Alliances, International Cooperation, and International Mobility. And it is the latter that has had a greater growth during the last years, going from 10 students doing academic exchange abroad in 2014 to 101 students in 2018, showing a growth of 910% in 4 years. It is important to mention that nearly 80% of these people had never left the country before, generating a process of transformation and growth at an academic, personal and social level.
This, thanks to a series of actions that the University has been implementing and that have allowed the Areandinos students to have the opportunity to live an international experience. Among these actions are the fact that students can access tuition discounts, according to the academic average grade on their career. This has meant that the students who make an exchange abroad are students with academic excellence within each of their programs. This is also linked to the financial support provided by the institution to the best students, and which aims to encourage mobility, understanding that most of our students could not finance a semester abroad without these incentives. Also, this kind of encouragements have promoted that the students, from the beginning, keep high grades, so they can have an international experience. Finally, the achievement of new strategic alliances with high-quality institutions, which have allowed to turn AREANDINA into a University Without Borders.