BBC News - Graduates - the new measure of power - 0 views
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There are more universities operating in other countries, recruiting students from overseas, setting up partnerships, providing online degrees and teaching in other languages than ever before. Capturing the moment: South Korea has turned itself into a global player in higher education Chinese students are taking degrees taught in English in Finnish universities; the Sorbonne is awarding French degrees in Abu Dhabi; US universities are opening in China and South Korean universities are switching teaching to English so they can compete with everyone else. It's like one of those board games where all the players are trying to move on to everyone else's squares. It's not simply a case of western universities looking for new markets. Many countries in the Middle East and Asia are deliberately seeking overseas universities, as a way of fast-forwarding a research base.
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"There's a world view that universities, and the most talented people in universities, will operate beyond sovereignty. "Much like in the renaissance in Europe, when the talent class and the creative class travelled among the great idea capitals, so in the 21st century, the people who carry the ideas that will shape the future will travel among the capitals.
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"But instead of old European names it will be names like Shanghai and Abu Dhabi and London and New York. Those universities will be populated by those high-talent people." New York University, one of the biggest private universities in the US, has campuses in New York and Abu Dhabi, with plans for another in Shanghai. It also has a further 16 academic centres around the world. Mr Sexton sets out a different kind of map of the world, in which universities, with bases in several cities, become the hubs for the economies of the future, "magnetising talent" and providing the ideas and energy to drive economic innovation.
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Universities are also being used as flag carriers for national economic ambitions - driving forward modernisation plans. For some it's been a spectacularly fast rise. According to the OECD, in the 1960s South Korea had a similar national wealth to Afghanistan. Now it tops international education league tables and has some of the highest-rated universities in the world. The Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea was only founded in 1986 - and is now in the top 30 of the Times Higher's global league table, elbowing past many ancient and venerable institutions. It also wants to compete on an international stage so the university has decided that all its graduate programmes should be taught in English rather than Korean.
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"Universities are being seen as a key to the new economies, they're trying to grow the knowledge economy by building a base in universities," says Professor Altbach. Families, from rural China to eastern Europe, are also seeing university as a way of helping their children to get higher-paid jobs. A growing middle-class in India is pushing an expansion in places. Universities also stand to gain from recruiting overseas. "Universities in the rich countries are making big bucks," he says. This international trade is worth at least $50 billion a year, he estimates, the lion's share currently being claimed by the US.
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Technology, much of it hatched on university campuses, is also changing higher education and blurring national boundaries.
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It raises many questions too. What are the expectations of this Facebook generation? They might have degrees and be able to see what is happening on the other side of the world, but will there be enough jobs to match their ambitions? Who is going to pay for such an expanded university system? And what about those who will struggle to afford a place?
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The success of the US system is not just about funding, says Professor Altbach. It's also because it's well run and research is effectively organised. "Of course there are lots of lousy institutions in the US, but overall the system works well." Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Developed economies are already highly dependent on universities and if anything that reliance will increase” End Quote David Willetts UK universities minister The status of the US system has been bolstered by the link between its university research and developing hi-tech industries. Icons of the internet-age such Google and Facebook grew out of US campuses.