Category: Internationalization

What Could Still Derail Fall 2021

Some of you doubted me – a few of you quite vocally –  when I suggested campuses would be able to open in-person for Fall 2021.  Now, it should be clear that with more vaccines being approved, accelerated deliveries of already-approved vaccines and the decision to permit up to four months between jabs, that pretty much anyone in the country who wants one will receive the first dose of the vaccine by June and most will have a second before

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The Future of Internationalization

Last week, I was part of a very interesting webinar put on by ICEF involving myself, Allan Goodman of the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the ex-head of Universities UK, Vivienne Stern. The webinar covered the future of higher education internationalization.  I am not quite sure when it will be posted, but prepping for it made me think about a few of the big new directions in which internationalization is heading. I spoke to three specific trends that may dominate

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Measuring Internationalization

One maddening thing about universities is that so much of what they claim to value is so badly measured.  Take internationalization.  Usually, this gets measured by the number or proportion of international students, which is ludicrously reductive given the extent to which in many countries international students are primarily income sources; occasionally, you might get some information about the number of foreign faculty.  Maybe.  But that’s it.  Anything deeper on internationalization is usually judged to be unmeasurable, so there is no way

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The Outlook for International Students

Everyone is wondering: what’s going to happen to enrolments in the fall?  Particularly, international enrolments?  It’s a big question because for the last decade pretty much 100% of all the increase in institutional income has come from fee income, much of it from international students.  Take that income away, and we’re talking about major cuts: in Australia, which is only slightly more international fee-dependent than Canada, the hit to the sector this term is estimated at over $5 billion.  Some

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Coronavirus (18…or so) – Positioned to Pivot

So, last week I suggested that the Fall term was likely both to start and finish online because of practical difficulties in pivoting halfway though in most institutions.  There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that most pivot scenarios assume that students who will start off learning at home are able to drop everything and find local accommodations with very short notice, and not all students are in a position to do that.  This would leave institutions either

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