In the United States, education abroad is popularly perceived as an opportunity reserved for privileged students, to have a fun vacation inspired by the idea of the European Grand Tour or enhance their employability through distinctive experiences that increase their status and qualifications in a globalizing labor market. In either of these cultural narratives, students are anticipated to both possess and acquire significant capital through the study abroad experience and deploy it upon their return. Despite these expectations, not all study abroad students come from privileged backgrounds, especially as participation has become more accessible over the last several decades. This study used a qualitative, narrative-inspired approach, informed by a theoretical lens of capital, to explore the ways former students of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and represent their study abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed and how their narratives intersect with pre-existing cultural narratives of education abroad. I conducted a series of two narrative-inspired interviews with eight students who studied abroad in the early 21st century. The findings of this study show that themes of Investing, Exploring, and Becoming are present in the ways these individuals remember and represent their education abroad experiences. Further, their narratives both reflect and nuance existing cultural narratives about study abroad.
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