AMERICAN COLLEGES: HOW THEY FARE AGAINST THE WORLD

This is a section taken from the Final Paper I am writing about the Globalization of American Higher Education. Would appreciate it if you can leave comments and constructive criticisms. Thanks.


With the growing competition between America and other countries in higher education exports, there is a compelling desire to examine the arguable superiority of American universities. Britain, once the bastion of higher education in the world, along with Australia and France are among those seeking their share of the global higher education pie. British degrees are now available at Nottingham University’s China and Malaysia campus, and at Liverpool’s Suzhou branch (Thompson, 2006). The French business school INSEAD has been running a Singapore campus, and the Australian Monash
University in Kuala Lumpur attracts talented students from the Asia-Pacific. Like America, Britain and Australia also have English as their lingua franca. This trend means that the competition can also be observed in different home countries as school jostle to attract foreign students.

Perhaps one of the most telling differences between the American system and the rest of the world is its emphasis on breadth over depth. A broad-based curriculum is the staple of American colleges which allows students to explore various areas of knowledge, whereas Commonwealth countries patterned their systems to those of Oxford and Cambridge which encourage specialization. By making students take varying types of classes, there is greater interaction between people of different types of interests, further capitalizing on the diversity of thought that exists on campus. However admittedly, this is a trade-off of a more intellectually-intense interaction between students of a particular major. (Still looking for Cambridge U facts..). Students in British Universities have the chance to explore other areas of study through electives, but they are never required unlike in America’s General Education curriculum. However, American colleges traditionally offer four-year degrees, whereas British programs only take three years to complete, including professional degrees like Law and Medicine which can be taken at the undergraduate level. The immediate specialization offered in British universities is more time-saving and economical, but it really depends on what a particular student prioritizes more.

A wider college selection extended by globalization has made students more mobile, and this can be an insidious trend as Americans want more options for specialized study at home. Although specialized colleges exist in the US like Cooper Union in New York, their number is small compared to those that exist in other countries, and only offer certain programs. Due to this, there has been an increasing number of Americans who are going abroad to pursue their undergraduate degrees (Lewin, Going Off to College for Less (Passport Required), 2008). At Scotland’s prestigious University of St. Andrews, Americans already constitute almost 20% of the student population, a five-fold increase from a decade ago. Opening up the higher education landscape in America to specialized foreign institutions and encouraging the development of home-grown ones would be beneficial as it can cater to the needs of certain college-goers. However, professional programs like Law and Medicine should still be offered only at the graduate level so as to ensure students are better prepared for such socially-crucial vocations. At the end of the day, the American broad-based system is more appealing to students who want the flexibility to change majors and pursue special concentrations; for those who are dead set on reading a particular major, attending more specialized British institutions is more attractive although this comes at the expense of a more diverse interaction with fellow students.

An integral part of any great university is its system of financial management, something that largely determines its lifeline and quality. With better funding come better classrooms, improved research laboratories, more quality faculty, and increased possibility of a lower teacher-student ratio which help enhance the undergraduate educational experience.

“In terms of GDP, the US invests more than twice as much as the UK in higher education, and its major research-intensive universities are among the largest beneficiaries.” (Gill, 2008)

By employing over 70% of the living Nobel Laureates (Ferguson, 2007), there is a very strong research emphasis in American colleges which is dichotomous to the French mandate that all research is only to be done by independent research institutions. Comparing the top American and British colleges, Harvard’s endowment alone is larger than the combined yearly higher education funding in the entire UK (Gill, 2008). Such an anecdotal example shows the disparity between the amount of monetary resources American and British universities have in improving their educational experience.

Nonetheless, top American colleges are generally much more expensive than their foreign equivalents, a ramification of the presence of elite private institutions. Experts like Ferguson have noted that this continuing trend can lead to the downfall of American greatness. Although this indeed is concerning, institutions are making the right choice of trading off cheaper, public education for more expensive private education. Learning from the pages of history from the demise of the German academic superiority to the supplanting of Oxford and Cambridge as the finest in the world, a significant similarity is that government funding and regulations contributed to their downfall as it takes away the institution’s independence in setting policies. As the Oxford Chancellor recently remarked, its tuition fees are set ‘intolerably low’ at £3,140 by the government, a figure even lower than private high school fees. This goes to show how government regulations of the finest universities can limit their greatness and future expansion. Moreover, the basic premise of providing equal access to higher education through nationalizing the school has not been fully realized: in 2007, 58% of applications came from state school pupils although state schools educate 93% of pupils (University of Oxford, 2007). Elite British colleges have long been pushing for privatization to provide long-term sustainability, but the ensuing political backlash has made it hard for politicians to follow through. Even though an American education is dearer, more scholarships and financial aid abound for needy pupils, some of which are extended to international students. In the UK, scholarship amounts are so antiquated that they are merely honorific. Singapore, which has the best education system in Asia, does offer scholarships called ‘tuition grants’, but bonds students three years to the country after graduation. Hence, despite the higher costs of a better quality American education, the presence of such financial assistance is the democratizing factor of private institutions.

Aside from the public and private status differences, the pooling of an American university’s finances has allowed better management of endowments reaping higher returns through economies of scale. On the other hand, the decentralization of financial resources in British universities’ individual colleges has led to lower returns on investments. As some private American colleges suffer financial crises, the concept of responsibility center management has been introduced in the belief that by giving the onus on individual colleges for their economic survival, this would lead to an overall sounder financial management. So far, this practice has been largely successful in turning around schools like the University of Southern California and Indiana University, with administrators keeping in mind to centralize finances at the top to reap economies of scale.

Due to the more prudent financial management structure of American colleges (presence of private colleges and centralization of finances), they are at a better position to improve the educational experience as compared to foreign institutions. However, within the American system, there is a widening gap between the private and public institutions. If left unchecked, this can have serious repercussions on social equity and may breed resentment as about three quarters of Americans attend public colleges. Privatization of some colleges has undoubtedly boosted the quality of American education, however it has to ensure that the public institutions do not lag so far behind by implementing measures that address the wide financial resource differential.

The presence of common standards and increased integration of educational systems in different global regions has been one of the main strengths of foreign institutions. While the SAT is required only by American colleges, the British GCE ‘A’ Level exam is taken by a lot of countries worldwide which serves as a standardized test for British, Australian, and Singaporean universities to name a few. As this test is the culmination of the high school curriculum itself rather than a separate test, it is more convenient for foreign students to take this rather than sign up for the SAT which can be cumbersome. Moreover, the Bologna Process has better standardized academic degrees and quality assurance in the European Union, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plans to create a similar higher education common space by 2015. Such developments allow easier mobility of students within the region, which is attractive as it provides greater flexibility and choice to experience different systems at minimal transfer costs. Also, such a common space artificially discourages students from leaving the regional system, thereby inducing them to stay. It is in this facet of integration of university systems that America can learn from these foreign entities. It can start incorporating the SAT in the high school curriculums rather than it being a stand-alone test, and market this approach overseas. Keeping in mind the adage “if you can’t beat them, join them”, the US can forge an alliance with such regions but ensuring that it does not lower its own standards in the process. This is a reality that the US has to face with the integration of economic and educational systems.

With the rise of economic powerhouses India and China, naysayers have prognosticated the eventual weakening of American dominance in higher education. They laud how the large pool of talent these countries have can be harnessed to redefine the forefront of science and technology, fueled by the hunger and passion of a developing country. But aside from the educational system per se, the surrounding cultural factors of the countries also affect the quality churned out by the institutions. The high school education systems of both countries are still largely reliant on rote-learning rather than application, so to improve higher education systems there is also the need to revamp the high school curriculum which takes a considerable amount of time. No matter how talented they are, the Chinese students still do not enjoy the same degree of academic freedom as the Americans. The restrictive and tight government control of schools can limit the stimulation of new, intellectual thought. Ditto for Singapore, where this was the main reason why Cambridge turned down the proposal of establishing a satellite campus in the city-state (Thompson, 2006). Great systems take time to perfect as human resources are essential in their success. Presently, only 30% of Chinese university faculty hold post-graduate degrees, partly due to the lack of an academic degree system until the 1980s (Altbach, Chinese Higher Education). As more Western-educated Chinese and Indians return to their homelands, they sure can help spur this new wave of intellectual revolution. But until then, they are still playing catch-up to mighty America.