Cultural exchange isn’t a vacation or a line on a resume—it’s an experience that shifts how you see the world and your place in it. It’s about broadening your perspective and creating lifelong connections. Whether you’re setting out as an exchange student or opening your home to one, the effects of cultural exchange ripple outward in ways that are difficult to measure and even harder to forget.
After 45 years of supporting high school exchange in the U.S., Academic Year in America (AYA) has seen the impact of cultural exchange and has learned so much from it. Since 1981, our program has placed over 35,000 exchange students from more than 60 countries with volunteer host families across the United States. During this time, we’ve witnessed what happens when people choose intercultural connection—and the lessons that have come from it are truly remarkable.
After four and a half decades of bringing students and host families together, we’ve learned a lot about cultural exchange. Read on to discover what the last 45 years have taught us!
Lesson 1: Cultural Exchange Builds Lifelong Relationships
While every high school exchange program eventually comes to an end, the relationships that were formed during that time often continue for decades. AYA exchange students have returned to their host communities, and host families have met their former students abroad. Some host families have even visited their former students during important milestone moments, demonstrating how a short-term exchange can create lasting bonds that feel like family. For example, when AYA FLEX alum Monika got married in Armenia, her host dad, John from Colorado, walked her down the aisle.
These reunions aren’t rare; they’re a staple of high school exchange. Kelly Brown, an AYA Local Coordinator who has placed an estimated 200 students over 13 years, organized a reunion that brought several former students, including Moritz from Austria, back to Kansas a decade after their exchange year. After arriving in his old host community, Moritz reflected:
“I’ve always wanted to come back. I think at some point, I realized I needed to… just to see everything again, and I’m really happy to be back.”
Host mom Julie put it simply when she said that her exchange students “were all a part of my family and my family loves them as much as I [do].”
The Lewis host family in Idaho is an excellent example of how long these relationships last, no matter how much time has passed or how many students you’ve hosted (for them, it’s 18!). When they traveled to Poland, six of those former students had secretly coordinated to host them for five days in the mountain town of Zakopane as a surprise anniversary celebration. The Lewis family shared:
“It’s hard to express the joy and excitement we were feeling, knowing we were going to get to see some of our kids again! When the dust had settled and all the arrangements were made, we met six of our kids and spent an unforgettable five days in that picturesque mountain town in southern Poland.”
Lesson 2: Communities Become More Global
The impact of hosting extends far beyond the students and their host families. When an exchange student joins a local sports team, does a cultural presentation at their U.S. school, or completes a service project in their host community, countless people are changed by these encounters. For many rural towns, an AYA student may be the first person from their country that residents have ever met.
Allen, a host dad in rural Kansas, has seen firsthand how hosting an exchange student enriches the local community:
“I think it’s a wonderful thing for communities like this one—a small Midwestern community—to have foreign exchange students. I know a lot of my kids who graduated from here just benefit—it’s a way to experience the culture and the way of life in other countries without having to go there because you’ve got someone here who’s living here full-time and can teach you, teach the students things, and give them different perspectives.”
Host mom Christy described how exchange connects communities to the rest of the world:
“Having students from around the world come to our little dot on the map—it makes our dot a little bigger. When you see things that are happening around the world, whether they’re good or they’re bad or destructive or positive, you have a connection to it, you’ve seen it, you know someone who’s lived there, you wonder how they’re doing. Every community should embrace that opportunity to learn, to grow, and to just find out more [about] what’s going on.”
Lesson 3: Exchange Students Grow in Confidence and Independence
Leaving home as a teenager to spend a semester or an academic year in a country where you may not know anyone or speak the language fluently takes courage, and it’s an excellent opportunity for personal growth.
The growth that happens during a student’s exchange experience can’t be replicated at home. It comes from these young people navigating a new school, a new family, and an entirely new way of life.
Nina, a former AYA exchange student from Germany, described it this way:
“A lot of self-growth happened for me. It was [about] being very independent for the first time in my life—finding out who I am in front of very new people. And then you’ve got to figure out: who am I? What’s important to me?”
For Moritz, the shift was equally profound:
“I’d say the impact of being an exchange student is that you realize there’s so much more to the world. I mean, your culture isn’t the only culture, but you also realize that people are very similar all over the world, and although you’re 8,000 km away from each other, you’re basically all humans and basically the same in the fundamentals.”
Lesson 4: Host Families Discover the World at Home
Hosting an exchange student is often described as a volunteer role, something you do for someone else. But as every AYA host family knows, you receive so much in return. This is why it’s known as an exchange, because the benefits go both ways. As the student immerses themselves in American culture, the host family learns about the student’s home country and their way of life.
When you host an exchange student, you bring the world to your doorstep. Over dinner, your family learns about what it’s like to grow up in another country across the world. You see how their background has shaped their perspective and worldview, and as you listen, these new experiences begin to shape you, too. For many families who are unable to travel abroad, it’s an excellent opportunity to experience the world—right from home.
Lesson 5: Cultural Exchange is More Important Than Ever
It would be easy to look at the world right now and feel discouraged, as division feels louder than connection. The instinct to turn inward, to prioritize the familiar and be skeptical of the unfamiliar, is becoming more commonplace—but that doesn’t make it right.
Which is exactly why cultural exchange programs like AYA matter so much today. As AYA Director Michele Kabel put it:
“In a divided world, AYA and programs like ours continue to prove what so many families have experienced firsthand: that our greatest commonality is not where we come from, but how readily we welcome each other in.”
Over the last 45 years of fostering cultural exchange and supporting those who’ve participated in our program, we’ve found this to be true. Ordinary people all across the country (single parents, large families, retired couples, and everything in between) discover common ground—our shared humanity—with people from around the world and are better off because of it. They learn that difference is not something to fear—it’s our strength as human beings. And frankly, it makes life so much more interesting.
Cultural exchange programs are not a cure-all for global geopolitics, but they accomplish something that policy alone can’t: they make the world feel smaller, more human, and even more worth caring about—one exchange at a time.
Looking Ahead: The Next 45 Years
The next generation of enthusiastic exchange students is already out there, ready to begin building bridges across our divided world. We believe that sentiment is a cause for optimism, no matter what the headlines say.
As AYA moves forward, our mission as a high school exchange program carries the weight of tens of thousands of students and host families, and countless communities that have been quietly changed by welcoming the world in. The next 45 years will bring new students, new stories, and new connections—and AYA looks forward to every one of them.
Be Part of the Next 45 Years
If you’ve ever thought about hosting an exchange student, there has never been a better time than now. AYA families come from every kind of background and from communities across the country. While no two host families look alike, they all share one thing in common: a willingness to open their homes to new experiences through cultural exchange.
Are you interested in bringing the world closer to home with AYA?
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