Brain Circulation: The Globalization of Higher Education
James Ketterer
Ben Wildavsky, Senior Fellow in Research and Policy at theKauffman Foundation and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, recently published an interesting book – The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World.The book details just how globalization is making for better universities around the world and a competition among them for talent. This is a story told over and over again in higher education these days and it is impossible to go to any meeting on higher education policy without hearing dire warnings about how Chinese or other universities are going to overtake U.S universities and that talent, creativity (and patents) will be lost in a zero-sum brain drain. But Wildavsky is not delivering dire warnings. He maintains that free trade among intellectual talent is good for everyone, including the U.S. In a Wall Street Journalop-ed earlier this month, he noted:
Accepting that we are living in an era of increasing global brain circulation has real policy consequences for U.S. development strategy as it offers a way in which to deliver meaningful foreign assistance. Namely, USAID should increase attention on building capacity of higher education institutions in the developing world, particularly in Africa and the poorer states in the Middle East and North Africa. This is not to say that the U.S. Government should work to establish a new American university in every country. Some, like the American University of Cairo, are outstanding. But in most countries very good universities already exist and with just a bit of sustained help those institutions can thrive. Supporting the development of universities works best for all involved via university-to-university partnerships. I have written before about the partnerships established by Higher Education for Development that work with USAID to create links as part of joint development initiatives. HED serves as a model for how the U.S. can build capacity in universities overseas and also establish sustainable partnerships that would allow for easier mobility of students and faculty.
I can imagine a time not too far away in which it wouldn’t be unusual for an American student to get different degrees in different countries. Maybe like this: a dual diploma as an undergraduate (let’s say through my university’s program with Turkey, so they would simultaneously earn SUNY and Turkish undergraduate degrees) a master’s degree from the Makerere University in Uganda, a professional degree from the University of Cape Town and a mid-career fellowship at Earth University in Costa Rica. Now that would really be a world-class education. To make it work will require taking language instruction seriously (so Americans students can fully participate in international partnerships), supporting study abroad with increased funding (for students who couldn’t otherwise afford it) and looking beyond the usual few countries that U.S. universities flock to. It will also take giving up what Wildavsky calls the mercantilist approach of merely seeking to capture and retain the best brains. That beggar-thy-neighbor approach simply won’t work for universities.