Internationalisation in higher education – Rhetoric versus reality

ByHans de Wit. In 1998, Philip Altbach and Patti McGill Peterson wrote a critical assessment in Change with the title “Internationalise American Higher Education? Not exactly”. They observed a discrepancy between the optimistic rhetoric of internationalisation and the reality of significant constraints.
Nearly 15 years later, the third study Mapping Internationalisation on US Campuses by the American Council on Education (ACE), which studied 1,041 institutions, confirms that this tendency is still prevalent in US higher education. And I would be inclined to add – also elsewhere.
What lessons can be learned from the mapping exercise? Would similar studies in Europe and elsewhere come to similar results? Will the divide between research universities and other institutions of higher education with respect to internationalisation increase and in what way?
The results of the study by ACE are described in a positive way. More institutions incorporate internationalisation into their mission statements and strategic plans.