International Higher Education, Fall 2000

The Crisis in Multinational Higher Education

Philip G. Altbach
Philip G. Altbach is J. Donald Monan SJ professor of higher education and Director of the Center for International Higher Eduation at Boston College.

Multinational higher education is big business, and it is about to get much bigger. Glenn R. Jones recently became the Chairman and CEO of GATE, the Global Alliance for Transnational Education, an organization which has the aim of fostering and maintaining quality in cross-border higher education enterprises. This is notable because Jones is also responsible for Jones International University, a for-profit provider of on-line educational programs. GATE moved from its location at the Dupont Circle complex of higher education associations in Washington, D.C. to Englewood, Colorado, the headquarters of the Jones educational enterprises. GATE, which was largely funded by Jones, is now directly linked with a profit-making corporation in the international education business, and is unlikely to be considered an objective arbiter of quality programs. At the same time, the British minister for higher education, Baroness Blackstone, was rapping the University of Derby for poor performance in a joint degree program it has with an Israeli institution. A report from the Quality Assurance Agency noted that the Derby-Israel collaboration "did not secure the quality and standards of programs offered." There have been repeated criticisms in the press of British multinational higher education initiatives in Malaysia and elsewhere. All is not well in the world of multinational higher education, and it is time for a careful look at the issues involved.

The University of Phoenix, now America's largest private postsecondary institution, and a for-profit corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has announced plans for a string of campuses around the world. Major investment capital is behind this initiative, which will have a large impact on offshore postsecondary education. The United States has so far been slow to expand overseas, and the Phoenix initiative is a sign that the Americans are moving aggressively into the international education business. Sylvan Learning and Kaplan, the test preparation company, have also begun foreign initiatives.

New Trends
Academic institutions, and increasingly business enterprises, are actively engaged in providing educational programs in other countries. The initiative is largely from the industrialized North to the middle-income or developing countries of the South. While higher education has always had an international dimension, with more than a million students studying overseas and with many collaborative arrangements among universities, this multinational thrust is a new development. There is a huge market for "offshore" academic programs since in many countries the demand for postsecondary education is much larger than the supply. This is combined with the ability to deliver programs worldwide through offshore campuses, collaboration with overseas institutions, or via distance education. There is no question but that these initiatives are needed in the context of expansion. And there is universal agreement that it is possible to effectively deliver useful and effective educational programs through new technologies and international collaboration. We need to understand all of the implications of these innovations if they are to serve the interests of students and teachers-and not simply become a vehicle for profit-making corporations.

We are in the midst of a revolution in the delivery of academic programs of all kinds internationally. So far, commentators have focused largely on the positive aspects of the revolution. Increased access, lower costs, and the advent of a truly global market for higher education are all cited as favorable trends, especially when governments are cutting back on higher education spending at the same time that demands for access are increasing worldwide. Enrollments have expanded dramatically-from 40 to 80 million worldwide in the past two decades, and with likely increases of another 20 million in the coming decade, most of it in developing countries. The means to serve these additional students must be found.

The focus here is on the problems and challenges. Our intention is to provide a needed balance to the overblown rhetoric of promise. We are not arguing that multinational and distance education is necessarily bad, or that the problems outweigh the promise. Yet, it is necessary to stand back and carefully analyze the new realities.

First, a few definitions are useful. By multinational higher education, we mean academic programs or institutions that are offered by institutions of one country in another. These may be "stand alone" branches, or collaborative arrangements with local academic institutions or business enterprises. They range from such high-end institutions as the University of Chicago Business School or France's INSEAD-each of which have established overseas branches-to tiny schools wanting to ensure their survival through overseas initiatives. There are also examples of free-standing institutions, such as the American University of Bulgaria, which exist in one country but follow the curriculum of another country and are accredited abroad. Distance higher education includes educational programs offered entirely through the Internet and other means that do not involve the student in face-to-face classroom or laboratory experience. Again, the range of programs is immense-and so far largely unevaluated with regard to quality-from the British Open University, generally seen as the Cadillac of distance programs (OU programs include some traditional classroom elements as well as distance aspects) to Turkey's Anadolu University, with 578,000 students. Growing numbers of students are utilizing the Internet to enroll in distance programs offered by institutions outside of their countries, often with little knowledge of the nature of the program or of the reputation of the school offering the program.

The Critique
In order to understand the new multinational and distance phenomena, a few central facts must be kept in mind.

• Multinational higher education always has elements of inequality. Institutions from the developed world are selling their products abroad, usually in developing countries. They are in general providing "off the shelf" programs which are simply used overseas. The decisions about the curriculum, standards, faculty, and requirements are all made by the sponsoring institution.
• The motive for establishing multinational higher education enterprises is almost always to make money. This is of course the aim of the growing number of for-profit institutions, but it is also the case for most traditional non-profit universities. Many, such as Australia's internationally aggressive Monash University, are quite open about it. British and Australian institutions have been especially active internationally as a way of making up for budget cuts at home.
• Institutions like Phoenix and Jones International are not really universities, although they have the term in their titles. Rather, they are degree delivery machines, providing tailored programs that appeal to specific markets. They do not have regular faculty, nor is there the kind of participatory governance system typical of universities. They do no research, and there is no free inquiry. They are devoted to delivering a clearly defined product, and they hire employees or contractors to produce and deliver it. They should not be called universities. Perhaps a better name would be the "Phoenix Training and Credentialing Service, a division of the Apollo Corporation."
• The multinational and distance movement does not really contribute to the internationalization of higher education worldwide. Knowledge products are being sold across borders, but there is little mutual exchange of ideas, long-term scientific collaboration, exchange of students or faculty, and the like.
• Multinational and distance institutions operate in a largely unregulated environment. Accrediting systems are trying to catch up with new developments, and government agencies, both in the sponsoring and in the receiving countries, are concerned and sometimes critical. GATE shows leaving regulation in the hands of those who own and control the new multinational and distance institutions and profit from them may not be the most effective way of ensuring quality. Higher education is, in general, notoriously difficult to evaluate. The new phenomena, using new and untried methods and extending across international boundaries, are even more unclear.
• Multinational and distance higher education are seen as "demand absorbing," as the economists put it. They provide access at a very low price to those who seek it. It is easy for governments to permit these new institutions to enroll students-every person in a multinational or distance institution will not be attending a traditional university, where the costs are higher and government often foot much more of the bill.
• While the trends discussed here constitute some of the major trends, there are many truly collaborative academic arrangements aimed at fostering international research, teaching, and enhancing academic programs. For example, the collaborative degree program in management between the 28 American Jesuit universities and Peking University or the longstanding collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University, both in China, are such cases.

Conclusion
All of this does not mean that these new trends are evil. No doubt, they have a role in contemporary higher education. They will not take the place of traditional universities, but there are things that the new technologies and cross-border initiatives can do well. We must understand, however, the problems as well as the promise. So far, everyone wishes to think the best of multinational and distance higher education-a lot of money is being invested, and many see the potential of large profits. Others are happy to see students who demand access being served almost regardless of the quality of the educational experience. Still others are happy to be able to obtain a degree conveniently. Those concerned with the future of higher education and with the broader public interest need to step back and take a careful look at what is actually happening.