Elsewhere, higher education grew in a much more top-down manner. In communist societies from the Soviet Union to China and throughout most of Asia and Latin America, a central bureaucracy ran universities, and often still does. Typically, these systems have been unprepared for changing expectations, as even the most remote and repressed populations have begun to develop—via the media and the Internet—a perception of how the other half lives. Many view education as a way to get their fair share. When they see countrymen returning with degrees from the United States or Europe and getting the best jobs, they begin to demand quality improvements in their own universities, for which resources are often lacking. The result is a growing gap between expectations and reality. That’s one reason that after a falloff following 9/11, the United States has regained its status as the destination of choice for international students.
To catch up, countries in Europe—not to mention Asia, Africa and Latin America—have welcomed a proliferation of private universities, including “virtual” online entities. But many of these institutions are of questionable legitimacy. In the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, private colleges are springing up rapidly, but most are “universities only in name,” run out of flats and thus quite literally “a cottage industry,” reported the local Tribune newspaper. Faculty is also an issue: in many countries, professors are poorly paid and institutions rely on temporary adjuncts, lecturers and part-timers.
Providing poor-quality schools will likely backfire, because students are increasingly unwilling to accept substandard fare. In an era of global brand awareness, everyone wants the “right name” on clothes, cars and diplomas, too. In China, students at second-tier schools have been known to pay extra to have their diplomas bear the name of a better university—and to riot if that promise is not met.
Many universities are looking to America as a model for how to survive. That means raising or introducing tuition, increasing enrollment (including the number of foreign students who pay full fare) and boosting endowments through fund-raising. Money, however, is not enough to build a quality university. In many countries, for example, professors are members of the civil service and do not enjoy the status, or salary, that will draw the best talent. In centralized systems like China’s, authorities can order up any number of engineers or scientists, but that does not mean they will be any good. Other nations are expanding bureaucracies to accommodate unemployed graduates, especially in the humanities and social science—an obvious recipe for disaster.
Today, free markets are on a collision course with state ownership or sponsorship of universities. The main challenge for each nation is to meet not only the aspirations of its citizens but the demands of its job markets as well. Countries that fail will face a debilitating brain drain. Even America is not immune. In the past, the United States relied on the many international students who came to study—especially science, math and technology—and then stayed. It also gave preferential treatment to immigrants with specialized skills. Today, as many societies advance economically, they are better able to retain talent and even attract professionals from the United States. Now America must increasingly rely on its own population to produce the necessary engineers, teachers, scientists and other professionals. It can no longer afford, for example, to accept the fact that last year, Maryland’s entire 11-campus university system produced only 46 secondary math and science teachers. Or that the proportion of foreign-born doctoral students in engineering at U.S. universities is close to 60 percent.
The United States needs to redouble its efforts, particularly by investing more to improve education in the K-through-12 years and at the university level, too. There is no room for complacency in the global competition, even though America’s diverse and hybrid system of public and private schools has solved the challenges of higher education better than most.
