In-country or On-Campus

There are essentially two choices facing American institutions when considering or engaging international students: in-country or on-campus.  The comfort zone for most institutions is on-campus.

There is a long, and profitable, tradition of student exchange programs and recruiting students from foreign countries for on-campus studies. These are great programs for both the universities and for the visiting students: cultural exchange, networking, and, for many, the opportunity to remain in the States.  The students typically come from the upper-strata of the socio-economic classes, already have access to higher education in their own country, and see the  US experience as bringing increased value to their degree.

Several models exist to serve this segment. The first is a peer-to-peer relationship between universities. These are quite common, relatively easy to acquire and manage (thus the "common" use of them), and generate great pictures and testimonies. How active these relationships are depends almost entirely on the participation of key individuals: certain administrators or faculty members who establish the relationship in the first place. As a result, they tend to be built upon the personal relationships of the individuals involved.  As people "move on" and situations changes, these relationships can quickly lapse into simply lists on the pages of International Education departments.

I was in a President's office of a small, Midwestern State University, and asked about their international engagement.  She asked the Provost, who shuffled through some manila folders, and pulled out a yellowed page listing the universities with which they had signed MOU's. Indeed, on campus, the international student population accounted for about 10% of their total FTE's and it was a quite active, albeit insular, campus community.  But nobody seemed to really know where they came from or why they were there.  However, everyone agreed that "International Day" was a lot of fun with really interesting foods.

These relationships can sometimes produce strange fruit: in a Midwestern Metro area there is an active Nepalese community, brought about largely by the efforts of a local university to recruit Nepalese students onto campus. I walked into a public laundry facility and met the owner, a Nepalese, who had come, studied for some 7 years for an undergraduate degree, married a local woman, and opened up a business. There is a Nepalese community center. Why would Nepalese ever come to Midwest University? Somebody had  met somebody, who knew somebody who wanted a US degree and who came, had a great experience, and helped established a Nepalese community of students who started integrating into the community.

Another model which exists is the use of third party recruiters to bring international students to campus.  These are professional recruiting firms who hold "seminars" or "consultations" in foreign countries specifically to recruit students to a US campus. They often hold several universities in their portfolio and will send students to those schools which give the greatest return in either numbers (brand strength) or compensation. They can be (un)reputable individuals or large companies, such as Study Group, and they make it their business to provide well-qualified students for admission into US universities.

Whatever the mechanism for bringing international students to study on campus, this method and its variations all share some common characteristics. The target market is young people from affluent families seeking to benefit from a US experience.  They often stay after graduation, by means of marriage or some other mechanism, and contribute to the host community. They often remain insulated, as is typical of immigrant enclaves, and create their own networks, nationally and internationally, within the context of the American experience. Oftentimes, the international students come because of personal networks, create their  own networks upon arriving, and these networks tend to be the primary business driver for both the university that hosts them and the communities in which they ensconce themselves.

Thus, while MOU's may define formal relationships between universities and contracts may define relationships between universities, recruiters, and students, ultimately, the success or failure of the on-campus method rests on the viability of the informal networks of the students who come, whether that network established the relationship in the first place or supported the students when they arrived.

This approach to transnational education poses several problems.  First, the audience or target of these programs are students who already have a place in a university or who have enough financial backing to be able to devote years of their lives and thousands of dollars a year to live and learn in the US. There are only so many of these students and they are not only highly prized, but aggressively recruited. Second, this system relies on personal networks, either for creating the mechanism for students to enroll or to support those students when they get on campus. Personal networks are powerful, indeed, but they rely on the continued participation of individuals who may or may not be involved next year or the year after. Third, this is not a predictable or scalable system: there are only so many desks and chairs on university campuses (though I do recognize that many are under-enrolled), so many dorm rooms, so many professors. Moreover, because a significant component that drives students to US campuses is based on word-of-mouth, bad news can cripple the pipeline and even the school.  I know of one rather obscure, fully accredited university that depended heavily on students from Taiwan.  It was reputed to be in a safe place and many of their international students were females.  When a series of crimes (muggings) were reported, the pipeline dried up because the Taiwanese parents feared for the safety of their daughters.  The school nearly went bankrupt in a matter of three years.

Ultimately, this approach to transnational education fails to reach the masses of qualified students for whom university education is a dream: they cannot just get on a plane and live in the States for four years. Or even two years. The countries that send international students to the US often never see them again: they take up lives in their new home and stay to start families and businesses.  And while this is great for the US economy, it is disastrous for the country sending the student: years of investment in their education just evaporates.

So, if the benefits of on-campus instruction of international students have natural limitations, how can US universities extend their "campus" into foreign countries?  I'll address that in my next post.