The Global University, the Future of Human Capital (Not where you went to college but what you know)

The American ^ | 05/04/2010 | Andrew Kelly

[SeekAndFind]

The world is a far better place when we embrace the transnational flow of people and ideas, limit the urge to engage in academic protectionism, and expand the reach of the global meritocracy.

For some Americans, references to the “global higher education market” call to mind hazy semesters spent guzzling beer in some European capital, the exceptionally intelligent Asian or South Asian classmates in a computer science course, or that sophisticated friend who went abroad to get a master’s in “Catalan Identity” (apologies to Woody Allen). Through this lens, the globalization of higher education is the process by which the world’s elite jet around the globe to earn degrees at the finest universities, becoming cosmopolitan “global citizens” as they go.

For others, including many of our elected representatives, the global academic market dredges up more foreboding visions of a world in which America’s postwar preeminence in scientific research and innovation is quickly being superseded by the enterprising Chinese and Indian systems of higher education. These upstarts are churning out far more (and far smarter) science, engineering, and math PhDs, and their research may help to slowly erode America’s privileged economic position. As President Obama warned in 2009, “the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

In his new book The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World (Princeton University Press), Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, illustrates just how parochial, short-sighted, and incomplete these perspectives are. First off, Wildavsky shows that the extent to which students and faculty cross borders, set up transnational academic partnerships, and diffuse Western university models to other countries in the modern era is unprecedented and continually expanding. In addition, he argues that as countries have sought to improve their position in the global higher education market, they have increasingly adopted meritocratic admissions systems, much as the United States did in the postwar era. As a result, whether and where you go to college is becoming less a function of who you know and more a function of what you know. The globalization of higher education that Wildavsky describes is much more than your daddy’s study abroad program.

More importantly, the book argues that nations should embrace the emergence of a global higher education market, not fear it. Wildavsky links academic competition and the free flow of ideas to age-old arguments in favor of free trade: increasing knowledge via university research is not a zero-sum game, and competition among the best institutions in the world will promote excellence. The existence of an academic “free market” promises to pay dividends that are not nation-specific. World leaders should therefore endeavor to remove barriers to the free movement of people and ideas to and from the world’s colleges and universities. As long as the urge to engage in “academic protectionism” is kept at bay, the United States should welcome the push by China, India, France, Germany, and many others to catapult their institutions of higher education to the top of the international heap.

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST

[Albion Wilde]

...whether and where you go to college is becoming less a function of who you know and more a function of what you know.

As long as what you know is liberal, atheist, anti-American and/or socialist.

[Buckeye McFrog]

well, I think the current crowd in Washington will manage to put the last nail in the coffin of the idea that an Ivy League education is worth much....

[Hop A Long Cassidy]

>>>the book argues that nations should embrace the emergence of a global higher education market, not fear it

For a man who pulls heavy weights, a bigger tractor increases his productivity and wealth. But bigger trucks for little ole ladies to drive to town is economic waste.

The same is true with education: more is not necessarily better. I have met many Ph.D.’s who work menial or sub-standard jobs compared to their exalted degrees. When factoring in their large education costs compared to the revenues they could have earned by entering the work force earlier, much education (particularly in social studies) just doesn’t add up.

The author of this book points out the obvious; that the Chinese and Indians, having been educated here, are returning and setting up indigenous institutions that will absorb the former stream of American educational immigrants. I agree, and this means that there will likely be a huge surplus of college facilities that need to be liquidated in the U.S., not only for this reason, but also because of demographics in the U.S. So... short colleges and their out of this world tuitions.