Walter Hutchens’ Blog

The New York Times here reports on overseas expansion by U.S. universities. Having worked in China-based programs for the University of Maryland, I continue to be interested in this phenomenon.

Operating abroad can be a very positive thing for US higher ed institutions. The desire to earn additional revenues drives a lot of this expansion, but it can be good in other ways, too.

There is a missionary aspect—the opportunity to educate students beyond a US campus, spreading certain values or knowledge. That aligns with institutional goals. More narrowly, some of the graduates will be employed by US multinationals. Others will become enthusiastic, generous alumni.

Beyond that, faculty will not only teach but also learn in these programs. Teaching a room full of non-US students and simply traveling to new locations can expand intellectual horizons, often leading scholars and researchers in new directions.

The administrators trying to run these programs are also going to learn a lot. They will to have to cope with issues like foreign exchange, overseas employment laws and cross-cultural marketing that can broaden their appreciation for the complexity of the world (and will surely frustrate many of them as they encounter things that their institutions’ US-based procedures are ill-equipped to handle).

On the other hand, there are some risks and tradeoffs. It isn’t clear how secure academic freedom will be in some of the areas where expansion is going on. A number of US business schools (and a few law schools) are already operating or considering operating degree programs in mainland China, still a Leninist state. As a practical matter, there may be little interference, but the rules simply do not formally grant to these programs a level of freedom that would be acceptable in the US. The Middle East locations featured in the Times article are not bastions of classical liberalism, either.

Beyond the political risks, institutions could harm their brands. The article notes some institutions are not sending to these foreign outposts the same faculty they use in the US. If different faculty are employed, admissions standards are relaxed (or at least, per force, the student mix is changed), and the literal context is not the same (so that students don’t experience the home campus with its English-saturated environment, library resources and so forth), the experience students get may not be as valuable, even if the institution is generating revenues and capturing other benefits.