There is no question that the academic enterprise has become increasingly global, particularly in the sciences. Nearly three million students now study outside their home countriesa 57% increase in the last decade. Foreign students now dominate many U.S. doctoral programs, accounting for 64% of Ph. D. s in computer science, for example.
Faculty members are on the move, too. Half of the world’s top physicists no longer work in their native countries. And major institutions such as New York University are creating branch campuses in the Middle East and Asia. There are now 162 satellite campuses worldwide, an increase of 43% in just the past three years.
At the same time, growing numbers of traditional source countries for students from South Korea to Saudi Arabia (沙特阿拉伯), are trying to improve both the quantity and quality of their own degrees, engaging in a fierceand expensiverace to recruit students and create world-class research universities of their own.
Such competition has led to considerable hand-wringing in the West. During a 2008 campaign stop, for instance, then—candidate Barack Obama expressed alarm about the threat that such academic competition poses to U. S. competitiveness. Such concerns are not limited to the United States. In some countries, worries about educational competition and brain drains have led to academic protectionism. India, for instance, places legal and bureaucratic barriers in front of Western universities that want to set up satellite campuses to enroll local students.
Perhaps some of the anxiety over the new global academic enterprise is understandable, particularly in a period of massive economic uncertainty. But educational protectionism is as big a mistake as trade protectionism is. The globalization of higher education should be embraced, not fearedincluding in the United States. There is every reason to believe that the worldwide competition for human talent, the race to produce innovative research, the push to extend university campuses to multiple countries, and the rush to train talented graduates who can strengthen increasingly knowledge-based economies will be good for the United States, as well.
Academic protectionism is characterized by ______.
A. enlarging enrollment of local students
B. limiting the growth of Ph.D. programs
C. creating more satellite campuses abroad
D. restricting satellite campuses of foreign universities
