This week’s reading delved more into the complications associated with the growing importance of internationalization and the competition amongst nations. As we learned last week, instead of every country developing their own policies and programs, there should be a form of equity, quality, and accountability. Currently, each nation is fixated on quantity, instead of quality, regardless of the financial burden they may be encountering. I don’t find this surprising since higher education institutions have been striving toward this goal internally. State contributions for American Colleges and institutions are slowly dwindling and these institutions feel the need to get as many students enrolled to generate money from their tution. Hence, student success takes the backburner and it becomes more about filling seats. According to Reisberg (2016), institutions are more attracted to international students because they cannot qualify for federal or state aid and usually pay majority of the costs of tuition, housing, and other expenses. Plus they can charge them more fees for being out-of-country students. But, what about the international students who cannot afford it? Is it fair that they would be robbed of an opportunity to study abroad in an anticipated country because money trumps a students’ chance to address global problems?
American institutions are now considering methods to increase retention and develop assessment tools to help them determine if a student learned. But how can students be assessed if there isn’t a common goal. Even K-12 has been struggling for years, tinkering with policies to measure a student’s growth, but has encountered failure. The reading mentioned failure is expected when trying new policies, but how long should these policies be in force before we realize it isn’t working? Should they be long term or short term? How can we measure the success of study abroad programs if every country doesn’t agree on its key factors? In what way should the following be prioritized across the board: workforce development, mutual understanding, global citizenship, national security, and improving higher education quality?
One aspect that stood out to me during the reading was that the U. S. A. is one of two countries that practices internationalization at home, meaning it is infused within its curriculum. Since Junior High School we have all been expected/required to take a foreign language. Although I have taken Spanish classes since the 6th grade, I am nowhere close to carrying on a conversation with an individual fluent in the language. Therein lies the oversight that a country cannot provide such a small portion of one culture and except proficiency. At the same time, you cannot place an international student with a difference experience, value system, and background in a class, without the proper resources and support, and expect them to acclimate abruptly without conflict. In order to achieve unity and harmony, support is necessary. Support not only from faculty and staff, but the country housing foreign students need to align policies and laws such as immigration and citizenship with the strategic plans of internationalization. If not, study abroad because a lose-lose situation for foreign students.

Adia Johnson

Cross-border education is a phenomenon in today’s world when one thinks of the many different ways it can be achieved. The definition given by ACE “the movement of people, programmes, providers, curricula, projects, research, and services across national or regional jurisdictional borders” is achieved by both physically being in another country and virtually being in another country. Reports have shown the significant benefits of studying abroad when it comes to being globalized as an individual, but reports have also shown that it is mostly white wealthy individuals who benefit from studying abroad.
Studying abroad ‘virtually’ could reach a larger number of students, thus globalizing a larger number of students, thus increasing the employee pool of globally educated students that American companies are looking for. It has been said that  virtually studying abroad, one will miss out on the true global experience of being embedded in a cultural different from ours. How the hubs in the U.S. will create this global experience is yet to be known. Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay in California is initiating a global campus 10 miles from their main campus. Berkley recognizes that it is a “hefty undertaking… that would take years—possibly decades—and hundreds of millions of dollars to fulfill the university’s vision”
The Ace reports that the one of the issues with international hubs around the globe are jurisdictional boundaries when it comes to policy frameworks and regulations and the lack of academic freedom in another country. International hubs in America could “preserve academic freedom, human rights, political activism, and intellectual property” by being a global campus here in the U.S.
Other benefits of local international hubs on U.S. soil is an alternative to the fear parents have of sending their children abroad because of terrorism. If this trend continues, the partnerships we have now within other countries could diminish. A report’s by EUA’s Senior Adviser Andrée Sursock, warns: “The impressive strides made in international higher education cooperation could be harmed by widespread global conflicts, including those based on religious fundamentalism and resurgent nationalism.”
There are cons and pros to every situation. Cross border education ‘virtually’ is an example of thinking outside the box for alternative ways of reaching more students.

The Boston College center for international higher education further discusses efforts in the global attempt to internationalize higher education. The analysis goes on to discuss the last 3 categories of different policies and programs worldwide that focus on enriching internationalization. The policy categories include Cross-border education, internationalization at home, and comprehensive internationalization strategies. Most noteworthy category seems to be the Cross-border education. This type of education provides a more flexible movement of people and services across borders. While internationalization at home brings the services to the country which enables  international learning experience at the comfort of their home university.

The article goes on to discuss that aside from the seemingly positive attitude towards implementing and carrying out international policies there can be various challenges . ACE suggest there are a few external factors that may cause some problems . The focal eternal factor being financial support. As the article mentioned other factors can be groups of people as well as dedication to carrying out such policies can also hinder the processes. I find it that there can be the carefully selected group of people and much dedication put towards policy changes for international education, but personally what generally most hindering of internationalization prospering is the lack of funds that are placed into higher education.

According to College statistics, students all over the world  leave college with large amounts of student loan debt. Which in turn poses a financial challenge for students to be able to attend college let alone travel abroad  with such high sticker prices for tuition. However, there may be hope yet. Cross-border education involving e-learning may become a very beneficial and cost effective form of higher education internationalization. According to a recent analysis conducted by the University of Geneva for cross-border education suggests there is a more inclusive and much more achievable way for internationalization via web-based learning from international universities. This method can be very cost efficient. Then it will all come down to the implementation of correct policies to make e-learning a reliable qualification that will carry the same weight as a traditional diploma.

Lastly ACE discusses  that internationalization has not  been promoted in longitudinal studies on a more grand scale. Although international learning dates back to the 1920’s in the US alone, and much further in other countries . There is yet time to see what type of  roads policymakers will take to help internationalization prosper.

This week’s reading, Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide: National Programs and Policies, continued to discussed more policies and strategies that are currently being implemented and evaluated in the world of higher education around the globe.

One of the important policies discussed in the reading is Cross-border education, which seems to be quickly developing due to the technology advances, and is also called “transnational or borderless education”. Cross-border education policy is aimed to “establish partnerships among institutions on national, regional and international levels, create educational hubs, encourage domestic institutions to create campuses and programs abroad, and regulate cross-border educational activities” (P.39). All of listed objectives are ways to increase capacities within domestic institutions, while regulating institutional activities and increasing the presence on the international market.

Internationalization at home is another motivating policy described in the reading. Creating international experiences on campus locally is another step to expose students and faculty to the internationalization without the need to travel and the issue of accessibility. I strongly believe that this should be a major priority among many of the internationalization policies in the institutions, as this one in particular provides highest access to all students on campus and will provide greater long-term results. Although the initial investment/funding requirement for hiring international faculty and altering curriculum might be higher than for any other policy/strategy, it will be able to impact larger number of students without the need and cost of traveling abroad.

The internationalization policies and strategies are not easy to evaluate. There are many aspects that make the measurement of outputs, outcomes, and impact arbitrary. The output is typically the easiest to measure, with the number of participants, however, outcomes and impact are way too broad to try to analyze with quantitative measures. Instead, understanding the reason and motivation behind the policy of program is more valuable in determining the effectiveness and reviewing outcomes of internationalization. To support and expand their point of view, Hans de Wit discussed assessment of internationalization in Higher Education in the report by European Association for Higher Education Measuring success in the internationalization of higher education and stated, “Assessments should simultaneously probe not only the particular outcomes of internationalization, but also the contribution of these to the overarching directions and aspirations of institutions” (P. 9). I highly support this point of view of the assessment, as it focuses on the mission, goals, and strategy of the individual institutions, which might not have a globalization as a priority, but forced to spend a substantial amount of resources to meet the standard around the world. With such approach, evaluating the effectiveness and success of the internationalization is more accurate, as it will be in relation to the go initially set goals and priorities.

Natallia Kolbun