<![CDATA[Economist.com | Articles by Subject | Higher Education:
Higher education is now international in a way it has not been since the heyday of Europe’s great medieval universities—and on a vastly greater scale. Numbers studying abroad were statistically negligible only two decades ago, says Andreas Schleicher, of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based think-tank. Now growth is soaring: 2m university students—approaching 2% of the world’s total of 100m, according to the International Finance Corporation—were studying outside their home country in 2003.
The article goes on to say that universities that shape their curricula to attract foreign students are the most attractive, the most competitive. If U.S. universities are not aiming to compete, they are losing ground along with the U.S. economy. America has attracted the most students in the past, but the change since 9/11 has put our schools at a severe disadvantage.
The question is whether there is a virtual university experience that could make up for the physical limits on access to U.S. universities and whether, having attended a U.S. school over the Net students will want to come to work here, if indeed they even need to to make the most money relative to their domestic cost of living.]]>