This week’s article focused on four aspects that are key to internationalization on a higher education level. These four aspects are student mobility, scholar mobility, cross-border education and internationalization at home. Funding that is provided to create and manage higher education comes from federal government, state government, accrediting agencies and higher education institutions themselves. It is no surprise that funding is the root issue that can make or break a program.
A running theme throughout the article is federal funding in combination with a broad-spectrum of contributions, is a key aspect to the success of internationalization policies in U.S. With majority of funds going to higher education institutions within the U.S. it’s not surprising that there is very little money is left to support internationalization efforts that we currently have. Let alone to go about starting new ones. The charts on pages 37-38, show just how much money other countries spend on internationalization efforts, (Saudi Arabia annually funds $6 billion in their King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program), when compared to how much is spent annually within the U.S. the ACE reveals that the U.S. while internationalization efforts aren’t funding by our own government (directly), it is interesting to note that we do get funding from foreign governments. The ACE itself discusses how unfair this is. Foreign governments are funding our efforts, but we may or not have a relationship with them in regards to internationalization in the educational sense outside of funding.
With the development of new technologies and other advancements made in other countries, the U.S. federal government has started to support the mobility of scholars and research collaboration policies. Having the resources we already have on our home front, combined with the knowledge that other countries can provide our students will give our students an advantage when they venture out to the world, this is something the government has realized.
In terms of cross-border education, there is very little concentration, at this point, from the U.S. government. That’s not to say we do not have any efforts at all. This week’s article revealed to us that there is a cross-border education effort between the U.S. and the Indian government: the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), which is funded by both countries. And in other my earlier posts I briefly discussed cross border efforts between the U.S. and the Middle East.
It is hard for the U.S. to come together collectively to focus on a process of internationalization. Within the U.S. there thousands of colleges and universities that are pretty much individually ran, with their own mission statements etc., and it is safe to say we here in America pride ourselves on having freedom in our educational efforts, so this poses an issue when it comes to possibly imposing internationalization on schools, no matter if it is for the betterment of the country.