The program allows students to study abroad without having to pay additional tuition at their host universities. Participants also don't have to worry about lost time: All credits earned while studying abroad with Erasmus transfer to their home institutions. Students also get small monthly stipends from their home universities, which depend on where they go and how much money their schools have available to support them while they're there.

As a handful of students gathered to learn a new language at the Microsoft store in New York City, a different set of students gathered a world away in Nigeria to embark on a similar journey. The language in both cases is coding, and Microsoft executives are making it a global cause. “Coding is a universal language,” said Dona Sarkar, principal product manager at Microsoft. “Coding is the language of solving problems.”

A major increase in international enrollment in recent years has intensified the competition for entry to America’s top private colleges and universities, as ever-growing numbers of applicants angle for the limited supply of seats. That tension is particularly evident in the eight prestigious Ivy League schools: Federal data shows that their freshman classes grew slightly from 2004 to 2014 — 5 percent — while the number of incoming foreign students rose 46 percent. At the same time, applications to the schools shot up 88 percent.

The J-1 visa programme that allows Irish students work for 12 months in the US is being extended for another three years under a new agreement signed by the Irish Government with the State Department.