Couldn't agree more. The statistic when I was in college was ~10% of students studied abroad, which I found shocking. A year's paid vacation to almost anywhere on the planet and 9/10 people said no! Also, despite the fact that you spend most of the time partying and traveling, employers look on study abroad favorably when you get out. I always found this amusing.
Two other things: 1) go to western Europe or Tokyo, or somewhere similarly developed and 1st world. It is far more difficult to go live in those places when you are no longer a student. 2) Go for a year. The people I studied abroad with who opted to do one semester were devastated when late December rolled around and it was time to go home. Although it may not seem like it, you aren't missing anything back home, and the friends you left behind will not have anything interesting to report when you get back.
1) That's actually not what I've heard from the friends that went to Ghana or Madagascar or Nepal - they seemed to get far more out of their study-abroad experience than us normal folk who went to New Zealand or Australia or Oxford. Many of them have traveled significantly since then - both to go back to where they studied abroad, and to other developed nations like Europe. Judging from my circle of friends, it seems like studying in the developing world is a life-changing experience while studying in the developed world is "merely" a nice experience to have.
2) Agree, but I didn't do so myself. Mostly because studying abroad was totally a last-minute decision for me - I got to a week before the deadline for the spring semester, found out all my friends would be abroad for the semester, and thought "Shit - what will I do for a semester?" Better halfway than never. My friends that spent a whole year got much more out of it - after a semester, you're still sorta a tourist, while after a year, you've really started to internalize some of the culture of your host country.
Two other things: 1) go to western Europe or Tokyo, or somewhere similarly developed and 1st world. It is far more difficult to go live in those places when you are no longer a student. 2) Go for a year. The people I studied abroad with who opted to do one semester were devastated when late December rolled around and it was time to go home. Although it may not seem like it, you aren't missing anything back home, and the friends you left behind will not have anything interesting to report when you get back.