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By Liz Reisberg. Another overseas programs appears to be biting the dust. The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) is not renewing its contract with the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). This brings into question yet again why universities pursue these overseas ventures when they are rarely profitable and difficult to sustain.
At the very least these initiatives demonstrate the complexities of cross-border, cross-culture activity.  Putting two countries together is not necessarily the neat sum of the parts. Typically, the sending country and the receiving country operate on very different models for higher education.  Models differ not only in program design and structure but also in the distribution of financial obligation between student and government. Sadly, at a time when Republican ideology is fervently anti-tax, US universities (both public and private) are continually searching for new sources of revenue.  Support from foreign governments can be very alluring. Too often university administrators pursue this revenue without careful consideration of the long-term implications. Foreign governments are not interested in subsidizing US higher education in order to make up for deficits of the anti-tax US environment; they have objectives of their own.  The objectives of the foreign government are too often overlooked or under-valued by a US institution. Read more...

By Bob Sun. There is little consciousness on campus of what the practical and political realities of having a large international population are.
This past winter break, I spent much of my time—when I wasn’t sleeping—trolling LionSHARE and writing cover letters for summer internships. That is, when I could find them, which is strange, since there is no dearth of jobs available to Columbia students. Especially for those students looking in industries that have a large presence in New York City, the problem is one of having too many options: It would be impractical to apply to the some 200 positions in finance currently open for this summer alone. But not for everyone. Hidden somewhere in most job descriptions is a line that reads: “Candidates must have permanent work authorization to work for any company in the United States for an unlimited period of time without restrictions.” I would hazard a guess that it doesn’t even register with most prospective applicants. But for the 19 percent of us who are international students , myself included, it is a line that greatly reduces the number of opportunities we can pursue. Read more...

By David Matthews. A new government unit will help universities expand abroad in an attempt to boost export earnings from the sector. Education UK has been launched by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and UK Trade & Investment, the government-run agency that aims to help British interests abroad. It will specifically target markets in India and the Middle East. Matthew Hancock, the skills minister, said that despite the UK's excellent reputation for education, the sector could make a bigger contribution to economic growth.
"It is essential that we realise the potential of the largely untapped resource that is our education exports. There is a fast-growing demand for high-quality education, and we are lucky to have a dynamic and entrepreneurial sector that is well placed to contribute," he said.
"We are in a global race and other countries are presenting attractive and coordinated offers, so Education UK is a vital step in bringing together the UK sector to drive its international engagement, particularly on high-value opportunities," Mr Hancock argued.
According to BIS, education exports are currently worth £14 billion to the UK, but this could rise to £21.5 billion by 2020. Read more...

By Elizabeth Redden. The rapid expansion of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has left many in international higher education asking how they can compete. With elite American universities dominating the emerging market, will foreign institutions be left behind?
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” some have decided. The California-based MOOC provider Coursera counts eight foreign institutions among its 33 university partners. Meanwhile, 12 universities in the United Kingdom have launched a new MOOC platform of their own. The Open University, a distance education institution based in London, recently announced the formation of Futurelearn in partnership with Cardiff and Lancaster Universities; the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, East Anglia, Exeter, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick; and King’s College, University of London. Initial marketing material for Futurelearn emphasizes its U.K. identity -- asserting that the Britain should be at the forefront of advances in educational technology and stressing that, until now, U.K. universities interested in offering MOOCs have only had the opportunity of working with U.S.-based platforms. However, Futurelearn’s CEO, Simon Nelson, said the company is open to eventually working with universities outside the U.K. Read more...

By Brian Mooney. Excellent international reputations, low or even no tuition fees, and courses taught in English: the EU option may make sense for you.
Irish students are so accustomed to competing for college places it seems strange that leading universities might be jockeying for their attention, but that is exactly what’s happening.
Although Ireland has more students than it does university places for them, Europe is experiencing an acute shortage of young people, because of low birth rates in many countries. As a result, an increasing number of EU third-level institutions, many of them very highly ranked, are offering undergraduate programmes taught exclusively through English.
It’s not all about numbers. Offering courses through English is a highly effective marketing tool for universities, and native English speakers are attractive applicants from colleges’ perspective.
Many students on the English-language programmes will not be native speakers, but the presence of native speakers on a course improves the quality of spoken English in the class very quickly. Added to that, the presence of students from other EU countries improves the international quotient, which helps universities when they are being assessed for global international rankings. Read more...

By Chen Boyuan. De-politicization in Chinese universities will be a tremendous undertaking, which will be difficult to achieve, said Zhu Qingshi, president of South University of Science and Technology of China (SUST), a newly established university that is pioneering comprehensive reforms.
Such de-politicization reforms mean empowering universities with more autonomy to carry out more education and research, while detaching administrative influence from academic affairs.
"The obstacle mainly comes from the lack of recognition from society," Zhu said, speaking of the difficulties. He compared the process of change to China's household responsibility system which started some 30 years ago. "Recognition of de-politicization in universities may also take three decades," he said.
Modeling the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Zhu Qingshi founded the SUST in 2011 with the hope to build it into a first-class research-oriented higher educational institute in Asia. Read more...

By Joyce Lau. This week, the IHT education section takes a look at the liberal arts, the largely North American education system that emphasizes a broad base of learning. It is slowly making inroads in Europe and Asia, where university courses have traditionally been more narrowly focused.
In Hong Kong, I met with Rebecca Chopp, the president of Swarthmore College, a top liberal arts colleges in the United States. Professor Chopp was on a whirlwind Asia tour that also included Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Shanghai and Suzhou, China. Like most college presidents on the road, she was there to visit alumni, raise funds and recruit students. She was also in a position to explain the pluses of a liberal arts education in a region where it’s still a foreign concept. Read more...

More British students are applying to university in Sweden following the rise in tuition fees for students at home. Studying in Sweden is free for all EU citizens.
Lund University, Scandinavia’s largest education and research institute and one of Europe’s most prestigious universities, has seen a 15% increase in UK applicants.
As the application period for studies commencing in August 2013 closed on 15 January, it became clear that the UK has strengthened its position as the number one country for international applicants to the university, with 639 applications this year compared to 558 last year.
British students therefore look set to continue as the largest international student group at Lund University. Overall, Indian students dominate the international applications in Sweden. Read more...