Why people-to-people exchange still works

Governments have paid for people-to-people exchange for about 80 years on a simple bet: if a student, teacher or young worker lives for a while in another country, they will come home with a less abstract view of it. The bet has been placed at enormous scale. One European program alone has sent more than 15 million people abroad since 1987.

What is harder to find is a clear account of what all that travel has actually changed. Testimonials are plentiful. Careful studies are fewer, and some of them find smaller effects than the brochures suggest, or effects that run through channels nobody planned for.

This article looks at four of the largest and longest-running efforts, sets out what the research says about them, including where it is weak, and then turns to the practical question of how a small organization could run an exchange that leaves a mark.

A senator’s program from 1946

The Fulbright Program was created in 1946 through legislation introduced by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and signed into law by President Harry Truman (U.S. Department of State). The State Department’s program overview counts more than 400,000 participants since then, drawn from the United States and more than 160 partner countries, with about 8,000 new awards each year.

The alumni lists are the part most often quoted. The same overview names at least 60 Nobel Prize recipients, at least 40 current or former heads of state or government and 89 Pulitzer Prize winners among former grantees. The current State Department history page gives slightly lower round figures for the first two groups (ECA), which reflects different counting dates rather than a dispute.

Those numbers say something about who gets selected, and we would read them with that in mind. A program that picks able, ambitious people will produce distinguished alumni whether or not the year abroad changed their thinking. The figures show reach and prestige. They do not show persuasion.

Erasmus and the scale of European mobility

Erasmus began in 1987 with about 3,200 university students from 11 countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom (European Commission). Today the Commission describes Erasmus+ as the EU program for education, training, youth and sport, open to learners and staff well beyond universities.

The Commission’s 2023 annual report recorded more than 1.3 million learning mobility participants that year, about 32,000 projects and 15.1 million people who had studied, trained, worked or volunteered abroad since the start (European Commission). The budget for 2021 to 2027 is an estimated €26.2 billion, nearly double the previous period (Erasmus+).

A treaty that built a youth office

France and Germany signed the Elysee Treaty on 22 January 1963, and the Franco-German Youth Office was established the same year as one of its practical results (German Federal Government). By the office’s 60th anniversary in 2023, close to 9.5 million young people had taken part in more than 382,000 exchange programs.

The office’s own summary puts current activity at about 190,000 young people a year in nearly 8,000 encounters, roughly 4,700 of them group exchanges and 3,300 individual ones, on a 2021 budget of 31.8 million euros (FGYO). The mix matters. Alongside school and university exchanges, the office funds internships, sports meetings, language courses and partnerships between twin towns and regions, and it puts 15% of its funding into programs that bring in a third country.

The office was set up less than two decades after the Second World War, and it has run without a break for six decades. That durability is part of the case for it. It is also hard to separate its effect from everything else that brought the two countries together after 1945, including shared institutions and trade.

Exchange across a hostile border

The harder test is exchange between adversaries. In late 1957 a U.S. delegation led by Ambassador William S.B. Lacy and a Soviet delegation led by Ambassador Georgi Zarubin began talks in Washington on technical, scientific and cultural exchanges. The records show disputes over radio broadcasts, films, magazines and security rules, and the talks concluded on 27 January 1958 (Office of the Historian).

The student part of the deal was small. University of Kansas historian Norman Saul describes how the Americans first asked for 500 graduate students from each side, the Soviets offered one or two, and the two sides settled on 20 (University of Kansas). Saul argues the exchange let civilians meet outside the frame of enemies, and he calls it often overlooked in Cold War history.

Yale Richmond, a Foreign Service officer who helped organize these programs, estimates that some fifty thousand Soviets visited the United States under exchanges between 1958 and 1988, with even more Americans going the other way (Penn State University Press). His book, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War, argues that these contacts helped prepare the ground for glasnost and perestroika.

Two cautions apply. Richmond writes as a participant, and his account relies heavily on interviews with people who took part. And the claim that exchanges helped end the Cold War cannot be tested against a version of history without them. Our reading is that the strongest point in this record is a modest one: the channel stayed open through crises, and it gave a generation of Soviet scientists, scholars and artists firsthand knowledge that official sources did not supply.

Musical tours belonged to the same period. We cover the State Department’s Jazz Ambassadors in a separate piece on music and peace.

What the evidence shows

Research on exchange outcomes comes in three kinds, and each answers a different question.

Careers and personal ties

The European Commission’s Erasmus Impact Study (2014) surveyed about 75,000 students and alumni, along with staff, institutions and 650 employers (European Commission). Former Erasmus students were half as likely to face long-term unemployment, and five years after graduation their unemployment rate was 23% lower than that of non-mobile peers. A third had a partner of a different nationality, against 13% of those who stayed home, and 93% could imagine living abroad, against 73%.

These are comparisons, not experiments. Students who choose to go abroad may already differ from those who do not, and the study cannot fully separate the effect of the trip from the effect of the kind of person who takes it.

Identity and attitudes

Florian Stoeckel’s panel study, published in Political Psychology in 2016, followed about 1,200 German students who went abroad, mostly through Erasmus, and a control group of 291 who stayed, across three survey waves from 2010 to 2011 (Stoeckel). European identity rose modestly among those who went and did not change in the control group. The rise held after students came home, and it was larger for those who started with a weak European identity.

Earlier panel studies of Erasmus that Stoeckel cites found no effect at all, which he attributes partly to differences in design. That disagreement is itself a finding: the effect, where it exists, is small enough that method decides whether it shows up.

Political change at home

Carol Atkinson’s study in Foreign Policy Analysis (2010) looked at U.S.-hosted military and civilian exchanges from 1980 to 2006 and found support for the idea that they can help spread liberal values to authoritarian states (Atkinson). She found that this depended on three conditions: deep social contact while abroad, a shared sense of community with hosts, and the participant later reaching an influential political position.

Who exchange students actually meet

One of the less expected findings concerns the people visitors spend their time with. Kristine Mitchell’s 2012 survey of 2,011 students in the Journal of Contemporary European Research found that 78% of Erasmus students socialized mainly with other foreigners, and only 7% both socialized mainly with host-country nationals and spoke mainly the host language (Mitchell).

Stoeckel reached a related conclusion from a different angle. In his data the growth in European identity came from contact with other international students, not with hosts. For a European program that aims to build a shared European outlook, that may be acceptable. For an exchange meant to change how two particular countries see each other, it is a warning: putting visitors in the same city as their hosts does not mean they will meet them.

Where the evidence is weak

Exchange programs have real limits, and most of them are about who takes part and how long anything lasts.

• Self-selection. Mitchell notes that it seems equally plausible that students who already identify as European are the ones who choose to study abroad. Without before-and-after data, a positive survey result may only describe who applied.
• Cost and access. Manuel Souto Otero’s 2008 study in the International Review of Education found that 61% of Erasmus students had at least one parent in an executive, professional or technical job, and 58% had at least one parent with higher education (Souto Otero).
• People who drop out before applying. In the same study, 53% of respondents had friends who looked into Erasmus but did not go, mainly for financial reasons.
• Selection by panels. Mitchell points out that when stipends are limited, applicants who already hold the desired outlook may do better in interviews.
• Short visits. A week-long tour can change impressions, but the panel evidence on lasting change comes mostly from stays of a term or more.

Souto Otero concluded that access had been moderately widened over the decade he studied while remaining far from equal, and that Erasmus students came largely from privileged backgrounds. The Commission now reports the number of participants with fewer opportunities, which passed 200,000 in 2023. That is progress, but it is still a minority of a program of 1.3 million.

A related problem is the gap between short and long exchanges. Most of the measurable change in the studies above came from students who spent months abroad. Many smaller programs run for a week or two. We are not aware of strong evidence that a short visit on its own produces lasting change in attitudes, and we would not promise it to funders.

Designing a small exchange

A foundation, city or community group cannot match Erasmus in scale. It can still apply what the research suggests about depth of contact, who is chosen and what happens afterward. The steps below assume a group of 10 to 30 people and a budget measured in tens of thousands of dollars, not millions.

Selection

Decide in advance whom the exchange is for and recruit actively in places where people would not apply on their own. Cover travel, visas and lost wages where possible, because cost is the most common reason people drop out. Set aside some places for participants who are curious but not already enthusiasts, since Stoeckel’s data suggest they may change most.

Preparation

Give participants some language basics, a short history of the host country written by people from it, and a frank briefing on what may feel uncomfortable. Meet the host group online before travel so first contact is not the first day.

Host families or shared work

Atkinson’s first condition is depth of contact. Homestays, joint projects and mixed working groups produce more of it than tours. A shared task, such as restoring a site, staging a performance or producing a joint report, gives people a reason to talk that does not depend on goodwill alone. Keep visiting groups small enough that participants cannot spend the whole stay with each other, which is the pattern Mitchell found among Erasmus students.

Follow-up

The months after return decide whether contacts last. Fund a reunion or a return visit, set up a channel the group actually uses, and give alumni a role in recruiting and preparing the next cohort. Our earlier article on women, youth and cultural diplomacy discusses why young participants need a defined role rather than an invitation alone.

Measuring change

Most small programs measure satisfaction at the end of the trip, which says little about change. A better design is simple enough for a small team:

1. Write down, before recruiting, the two or three attitudes or skills the exchange is meant to change.
2. Survey participants before departure with a few short questions on those points.
3. Survey a comparison group of applicants who were not selected, or who will travel in a later round.
4. Repeat the same questions at return and again after six to twelve months.
5. Record contacts that lasted: messages, visits, joint projects started after the exchange.
6. Publish the results, including weak ones, so the next program can learn from them.

Twenty participants and twenty comparison cases will not settle causation, but they beat end-of-trip praise. A short guide to this kind of evaluation would be a useful addition to the CDDF research and interviews collection.

What we take from the record

Read together, the sources point to a narrower claim than the one usually made for exchange. In our reading, exchange works best as a long-term channel between societies, not a quick tool for winning opinion. Fulbright, Erasmus and the youth office have lasted for decades and reached millions, and their participants differ from non-participants in careers, personal ties and outlook. How much of that difference the exchange caused is still unclear.

The research does agree on conditions. Contact has to be deep, the groups have to mix, and participants have to stay in touch afterward. A small program that gets those three things right, and measures honestly, can contribute more evidence to this field than many large ones have. For the wider case that cultural work belongs in development budgets, see our article on culture and development.

Key terms

People-to-people exchange: Programs that send individuals, such as students, teachers, artists or young workers, to live, study or work in another country for a period.

Self-selection: The bias that arises when the people who choose to take part already differ from those who do not, which makes before-and-after or comparison data necessary.

Panel study: Research that surveys the same people several times, for example before departure, at return and months later.

Learning mobility: The European Commission’s term for time spent abroad to study, train, teach, work or volunteer under Erasmus+.

Soft power: The ability of a country to shape others’ preferences through attraction, such as its culture, values and institutions, rather than force or payment.

Questions for discussion

1. If most Erasmus students socialize mainly with other foreigners, what does that mean for programs meant to improve relations between two specific countries?
2. How would you design a comparison group for a small exchange without treating unselected applicants unfairly?
3. Should a program accept fewer participants in order to cover full costs for people who could not otherwise travel?
4. What would count as convincing evidence that an exchange changed attitudes, rather than attracting people who already held them?

Frequently asked questions

Does people-to-people exchange change attitudes?

Some panel studies find modest, lasting gains, for example in European identity after a term abroad, while others find no effect. The size of the effect depends heavily on how deep the contact is.

How many people have taken part in Erasmus?

The European Commission reports 15.1 million participants between 1987 and the end of 2023, with more than 1.3 million in 2023 alone.

When was the Fulbright Program founded?

It was created in 1946 through legislation introduced by Senator J. William Fulbright and signed by President Truman.

What is the main weakness in exchange research?

Self-selection: people who choose to go abroad often already hold the attitudes the program hopes to build, so simple comparisons overstate its effect.

Are short visits worth funding?

They can open contacts, but the evidence for lasting change comes mostly from stays of a term or more, so short visits need strong follow-up.

How can a small organization measure results?

Survey participants and a comparison group before travel, at return and six to twelve months later, using the same few questions each time.

Closing thoughts on people-to-people exchange

The large programs have shown that people-to-people exchange can run for decades, reach millions and keep a channel open even between rivals. What they have not shown, with the rigor the money deserves, is how much of the change in participants the exchange itself produced. Smaller organizations are in a good position to help close that gap, because they can track every participant.

For a group planning its first exchange, the practical starting point is simple: write down what you expect to change, ask the same questions before departure and again a year later, and keep the comparison group. Organizations interested in this kind of work can follow the CDDF programs page for current activities.

Sources

• U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Fulbright Program Overview (archived site, 2012 to 2025).
• U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Fulbright Program history (accessed 2026).
• European Commission, Marking 37 years of Erasmus+: key numbers and achievements (17 June 2024).
• European Commission, Erasmus+ Annual Report highlights support for 1.3 million learning opportunities abroad and 32,000 projects (27 November 2024).
• European Commission, What is Erasmus+? (accessed 2026).
• European Commission, The Erasmus Impact Study (2014).
• Franco-German Youth Office, The Franco-German Youth Office (fact sheet, figures for 2021).
• German Federal Government, 60 years of active involvement and future-building (6 July 2023).
• Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955 to 1957, Volume XXIV, Document 114: Editorial Note.
• University of Kansas, Researcher chronicles forgotten educational exchange with Soviets (1 October 2015).
• Penn State University Press, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain, by Yale Richmond (2003).
• Florian Stoeckel, Contact and Community: The Role of Social Interactions for a Political Identity, Political Psychology 37(3) (2016).
• Kristine Mitchell, Student mobility and European Identity: Erasmus Study as a civic experience?, Journal of Contemporary European Research 8(4) (2012).
• Carol Atkinson, Does Soft Power Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Student Exchange Programs 1980-2006, Foreign Policy Analysis 6(1) (2010).
• Manuel Souto Otero, The socio-economic background of Erasmus students: A trend towards wider inclusion?, International Review of Education 54(2) (2008).