These programs recruit participants and college students (18 years and older) from outside the United States and its territories for year-long cultural exchanges with paid positions and summer-long paid internships, working at the Walt Disney World Resort.

Previous programs included: Eligibility is open to applicants who reside outside the United States or their territories and are not American citizens.

To qualify for this program, applicants must "authentically represent" one of the countries or regions recreated at a Walt Disney World theme park or resort.

By 1988, all participants were fully relocated out of Snow White Village Campground, which was later converted into a vacationing site.

Three additional company-sponsored gated-community apartment complexes, The Commons, Chatham Square and Patterson Court, opened as the Disney College Program expanded to accommodate more participants, all adjacently-located in Little Lake Bryan, less than three miles away from Vista Way.

Participants in Orlando were provided the option to either live off-property or reside in one of the four complexes, until they were closed in March 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[6][7][8] The relocation of Disney College Program participants to Flamingo Crossings Village was originally planned to take place mid-2020, when the four existing housing complexes were scheduled to close and sold off.

On March 14, 2020, the Disney International Programs were suspended due to the ongoing worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its spread to Florida.

[9][10][11] International participants actively enrolled during this time in company-sponsored housing were asked to vacate in a short period of time, as well as Disney College Program and culinary students, providing full credit and completion of the program in return.

[13][14] On July 14, 2020, less than a week after the Walt Disney World Resort reopened during the coronavirus pandemic, the Cultural Representative Program was suspended indefinitely, impacting those who were actively participating at the time and future participants who were accepted for the Fall 2020 semester.