“The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves, the AP has learned.”
This was the Associated Press alert that came across my phone the day after the Brussels terrorist attacks.
And in the days after that? Alerts about more terrorists caught in Paris and Brussels that were planning future attacks.
ISIS has made it that going to Europe has now become a risk on your own life. Which is why I think the United States shouldn’t allow students to study abroad after the attacks in Brussels.
Now you can argue that banning students to study abroad is a breach of freedom if we still let go. But college students are America’s future, and the last thing any parent wants to do is bury their own child.
Here are the main reasons why the United States and colleges shouldn’t be allowing students to go abroad.
The obvious one — it’s not safe.
It’s been Paris and Brussels so far with the attacks, but that doesn’t mean the attacks won’t spread to other major cities across Europe. And where do college students go while studying abroad? To all the major cities. Barcelona, Madrid, Florence, Rome, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, you name it and American students will be there Snapchatting away. The attacks can happen at any time, any place, and that’s what makes it more dangerous.
Universities can become liable and parents could sue.
If a student wants to travel to Europe on their own and they get hurt or killed during a terrorist attack, the “blame” falls on the student for knowingly walking into potential danger. But if a university is aware of the dangers that people are in while in major European cities, but still has no problem taking students money and sending them abroad, then the “blame” can fall on the university. And the last thing a college wants is to be sued for knowingly allowing students to go abroad to unsafe areas and getting hurt or killed.
If we’ve issued travel warnings in the past we can do travel bans.
The United States has issued warnings to plenty of different places around the world whether it be due to terrorist activity and conflicts or diseases like Ebola and the Zika virus. Yes, there is the issue of restricting freedom but when the AP says that ISIS has hundreds of militants that are planning attacks in Europe, that’s scary. Would you rather be safe in your own country at home or abroad somewhere in a foreign place with the chance of an attack happening? The US has a duty to keep its citizens safe from harm and sometimes that means having to restrict the ability to travel out of the country if it keeps people alive.
To a lot of you, you make think I’m crazy for wanting to put a halt on college kids studying abroad. But I’ve seen college friends who studied in Paris use the Facebook check in during the Paris attacks. I know someone who was in Brussels the day before the attacks occurred there. And I still have plenty of friends who are still traveling about Europe. We aren’t immune to the dangers out in the world, even if we think we are. While college students keep drinking their way across Europe, Europe is getting nervous because no one knows when or where the next attack could be. College is a time of exploration and to make mistakes, but traveling abroad to countries with terrorist attacks isn’t one of them.
