For Elizabeth Hall, a cab ride from the airport just wasn’t worth $120.
While studying abroad in Toledo, Spain for Fall Quarter, the Communication junior traveled to London via Gatwick Airport, expecting to take a taxi to her hotel in the city’s center. But when she arrived, she found that the cab ride would cost between 60 and 70 British pounds.
“With the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound being as terrible as it was, that would have cost me about $120 for one cab ride from the airport,” Hall said. “I had to change my plans completely.”
For Hall and many of her peers who have chosen to study abroad in the past year, the falling value of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies has caused a fair share of headaches. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the value of the U.S. dollar has taken a plunge against the Euro since spring of 2003, sliding from about equal rates to $1.30 to 1 Euro.
In that same time period, the exchange rate from dollars to British pounds has risen from risen from $1.60 to 1 pound to $1.87, cresting near $1.95 last December.
Northwestern Economics Lecturer Mark Witte attributed the dollar’s plunge to America’s sizeable trade deficit, and called a recent, much talked about rally of the dollar against European currencies “artificial and transitory.”
Witte said students planning to go abroad in Europe shouldn’t expect any major relief in the coming years.
“I’d say that if I was a freshman thinking about doing a junior year abroad, I’d be feeling pretty pessimistic,” Witte said.
Regardless of what the future may hold, students abroad have had to bear the burden of an increased cost of living. Students said the squeeze most affected their discretionary spending — extras like shopping, gifts, nightlife and travel — which often had to be cut.
“It was just little things,” said Weinberg senior Chris Grattoni, who spent last fall studying in London and returned this Winter Break to visit friends. “You know, going out for a drink, and thinking, ‘Do I want to spend four or five pounds on a beer when I know that’s going to be an eight to ten dollar beer?'”
Students studying in major European cities such as Dublin, London and Paris have been hit hardest, since local cost of living in those cities is high even without the handicap of an unfavorable exchange rate.
In central London, the 11-pound price tag for a movie ticket, already steep by English standards, turns into more than $20.
And even outside of Europe, students also felt the impact of the falling dollar.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, this past fall, Weinberg junior Mercedes Stickler and her friends enjoyed a safari early on in their trip, when the dollar still equalled six to seven Rand.
When Stickler left Johannesburg, the dollar was worth only 5.4 Rand. Had she tried to schedule the safari later than they had, “It probably would have exceeded (her) budget entirely.”
Stickler added that the weak dollar definitely played into her budget decisions.
Regardless of what they spent, however, students returning from being abroad all agreed that their experiences were indispensible.
“I sure do hope that it doesn’t deter kids from going abroad,” Weinberg senior Ben Hirsh said. “I feel like I’ve learned more in those four months than I did in all of college.”
Some students found creative ways to economize while abroad. Hirsh said that while he studied in Toledo, Spain, Fall Quarter, a group of his friends decided to take a weekend trip to Milan but worried about the cost of food. Their solution: packing sandwiches.
Reach Jordan Weissmann at [email protected].
