Hailie Goldthorpe

Tulane University students hoping to study abroad in Florence, Madrid or Barcelona may soon find themselves competing for spots after the Office of Study Abroad implemented new capacity limits.  

Casey Love, OSA associate dean of global education, said the new caps are part of a broader effort to improve the academic and cultural goals of Tulane’s global education programs. She also attributed the caps to concerns about the impact on host cities.  

“We saw very large concentrations of Tulane students and a handful of European cities,” Love said.  

Tulane offers about 240 study abroad programs in 57 countries and more than 1,000 students pursue international programs each year. Love said in fall 2025, 18% of all study abroad students were in Barcelona and 13% were in Madrid. 

Popular destinations such as Barcelona and Madrid are dealing with the negative effects of overtourism, and Love said sending large numbers of students to the same location may only increase that pressure and undermine the educational goals of studying abroad. 

“We believe that the over saturation or over enrollment of students in certain programs is inhibiting the achievement of our core learning outcomes,” Love said. “We want to be very clear that we see study abroad as an academic pursuit. It’s not a vacation with your friends.” 

Abroad program evaluations showed that 68% of students in one of the most popular programs said the presence of many other Tulane students limited their cultural immersion, according to Love. 

To help determine placements, OSA uses what Love calls a “best-fit model,” which prioritizes how well a program aligns with a student’s academic goals rather than awarding spots based on grades or popularity.  

“We’re looking at the students’ academic rationale for choosing a particular program,” Love said. 

Peer advisor Malí Weitzman, who works with students in OSA, said the caps are also intended to improve sustainability for the programs.  

“When we send 150 students to one program, it is really hard on the people that run that program in the study center,” Weitzman said.  

Weitzman said that the caps may encourage students to broaden their choices rather than gravitating toward the same destinations.  

“I think what will happen is that people will spread out beyond more programs,” Weitzman said. “For example, there’s a lot of interest in Lisbon this year. And I think that this is ultimately a good thing that caps made people rethink why they wanted to go somewhere.” 

The change is sparking frustration for some students navigating the study abroad application process, particularly those who had assumed that competitiveness was largely limited to the A. B. Freeman School of Business exchange programs, which have historically been more selective. 

For sophomore Sully Strobel, who applied through both the business school and OSA programs, the process already required strategic planning. She said students often treat the process like a college application, carefully researching programs and preparing backup choices in anticipation of the capacity limits. 

In the long term, Love said Tulane plans to maintain the caps and is considering expanding them as interest in programs continues to grow.  

“I just really encourage students to push themselves out of their comfort zone,” Love said. “[Thinking] long term about the skills that students are gaining through study abroad, outside of academics, I think that there’s a real case to be made that those are more easily achieved when you are an immersed in a world of difference, away from the comfort of your peers.”