Study Abroad as an Unexpected Expense - Video of the Week

For this Video of the Week I embedded this Bank of America commercial about unexpected expenses.  This is a pretty good commercial to start with but what I really like is that the idea of study abroad is brought up (two 2 second snippets of the commercial so you have to watch the entire 0:37 of video) as an unexpected expense .  It is great that the concept of study abroad was brought up in this commercial but what is really important about the commercial is that the student and parents are African American.  This is important because African American students have traditionally been underrepresented in the U.S. study abroad study abroad population as demonstrated by the most recent Open Doors data showing that only 4.0% of U.S. students studying abroad in 2007-2008 were African American.  Including an African American student discussing studying abroad in France with his parents in the commercial is a small, but welcomed, step in showing that students of all backgrounds are interested in studying abroad and that we as a field need to continue our efforts to diversify the U.S. student profile studying abroad.
To all parents out there...be prepared for your student to come home some day and tell you that they want to study abroad!  As much as possible let's make study abroad a necessary expense for our students rather than an unexpected expense!