In contrast to last weeks reading this weeks reading is about internationalizing U.S. higher education. I found it interesting that our discussion about incentives to ensure students go back to their home country was a hot topic last week but the U.S. does not really push those ideas. Instead programs like extending optional practical training to students who come study abroad here to 29 months instead of 12. For example, the David L. Boren scholarship and fellowship only require U.S. students to work for 1 year or the U.S. government. With the hefty monetary amount that they are given as well, more years should be required.
Another program that was really surprising and I did not know about was the 2013 U.S. Mexico Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research. Currently we are fighting a huge battle political about making our borders stronger but opening up a program like this could make or break those policies. These agreements were made with President Obama and the Mexican president where they plan on sending over 100,000 Mexican students by 2018 and 50,000 U.S. students to Mexico. I can see this policy being broken when a new presidential candidate is elected. Right now millions of people are fleeing Mexico due to unsafe conditions, why would we want to send our students into that kind of predicament. Can the Mexican government ensure our students safety? In an article I read it states that the Mexican government does need to try harder than the Americans convince students to study abroad in their country.
https://usmex.ucsd.edu/_files/MMF2014_Reading_Factsheet-FOBESII.pdf
There have also been many goals set in place by the U.S. government without any actual plan on how to achieve these goals. The reading mentions that there are several reasons why there is not a comprehensive national policy for the internationalization of higher education in the U.S. but the largest is that we have no central ministry of education. Since I work with international admissions at CUNY I see that many other countries have centralized ministries of education. I never understood why students could not receive transcripts directly from their university as many of them insisted they had to reach out to the ministry of education. As much as this may be difficult at times it centralizes the higher education system. If the U.S. had something similar to this we may not have to worry about non accredited institutions giving students degrees that are not accepted in the work place or by other accredited institutions.
Hi Melissa,
I have been under the assumption that a decentralized higher education is good for higher education in the United States as it has many benefits, but just like everything else, it has it’s pros and cons. You have brought attention to a con that I have not thought about when you mentioned the unaccredited institutions in the United States. Before I got involved in Higher Ed, a student I was in class with me told me about her situation of attending a university that was not accredited and how all her credits were worthless in the world of transferring. I remember thinking, “How is that possible”. But as I see now, without a centralized Higher Ed system, it is possible. I still believe in the decentralized system and the freedom of institutions to do as they seem fit but there should be additional information out there so people understand how important accreditation is when choosing a college or university.