Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Free trade in minds across borders opens possibilities for all
By Ben Wildavsky |
August 10, 2010, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FOR decades, research universities in the United States have been acknowledged as the world's leaders in science and engineering, unsurpassed since World War II in the sheer volume and excellence of the scholarship and innovation that they generate.
But there are growing signs that the rest of the world is gaining ground fast - building new universities, improving existing ones, competing hard for the best students, and recruiting US-trained PhDs to return home to work in university and industry labs.
Is the international scholarly pecking order about to be overturned? There is no question that the academic enterprise has become increasingly global, particularly in the sciences. Nearly three million students now study outside their home countries - a 57 percent increase in the last decade.
Foreign students now dominate many US doctoral programs, accounting for 64 percent of PhDs in computer science, for example. Tsinghua and Peking universities together recently surpassed Berkeley as the top sources of students who go on to earn American PhDs.
Faculty are on the move, too. Half of the world's top physicists no longer work in their native countries. And major institutions such as New York University and the University of Nottingham are creating branch campuses in the Middle East and Asia. There are now 162 satellite campuses worldwide, an increase of 43 percent in just the past three years.
Hand-wringing
At the same time, growing numbers of traditional source countries for students, from South Korea to Saudi Arabia, are trying to improve both the quantity and quality of their own degrees, engaging in a fierce - and expensive - race to recruit students and create world-class research universities of their own.
All this competition has led to considerable hand-wringing in the West. During a 2008 campaign stop, for instance, then-candidate Barack Obama spoke in alarmed tones about the threat that such academic competition poses to US competitiveness.
"If we want to keep on building the cars of the future here in America," he declared, "we can't afford to see the number of PhDs in engineering climbing in China, South Korea, and Japan even as it's dropped here in America."
In the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, legitimate security concerns led to enormous student-visa delays and bureaucratic hassles for foreigners aspiring to study in the US. Student numbers have since rebounded, despite intermittent problems, but there remain severe limits on work and residency visas.
Perhaps some of the anxiety over the new global academic enterprise is understandable, particularly in a period of massive economic uncertainty. But educational protectionism is as big a mistake as trade protectionism.
The globalization of higher education should be embraced, not feared - including in the US. There is every reason to believe that the worldwide competition for human talent, the race to produce innovative research, and the rush to train talented graduates who can strengthen knowledge-based economies will be good for the US as well.
No zero-sum
Above all, this is because the expansion of knowledge is not a zero-sum game. More PhD production and burgeoning research in China, for instance, doesn't take away from America's store of learning: on the contrary, it enhances what we know and can accomplish.
Because knowledge is a public good, intellectual gains by one country often benefit others. Chinese research may well provide the building blocks for innovation by US entrepreneurs - or those from other countries.
Indeed, the economic benefits of a global academic culture are significant.
Just as free trade provides the lowest-cost goods and services, global academic competition is making free movement of people and ideas, on the basis of merit, more and more the norm.
The US should respond to the globalization of higher education not with angst but with a sense of possibility.
(The author is a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.www.project-syndicate.org)
But there are growing signs that the rest of the world is gaining ground fast - building new universities, improving existing ones, competing hard for the best students, and recruiting US-trained PhDs to return home to work in university and industry labs.
Is the international scholarly pecking order about to be overturned? There is no question that the academic enterprise has become increasingly global, particularly in the sciences. Nearly three million students now study outside their home countries - a 57 percent increase in the last decade.
Foreign students now dominate many US doctoral programs, accounting for 64 percent of PhDs in computer science, for example. Tsinghua and Peking universities together recently surpassed Berkeley as the top sources of students who go on to earn American PhDs.
Faculty are on the move, too. Half of the world's top physicists no longer work in their native countries. And major institutions such as New York University and the University of Nottingham are creating branch campuses in the Middle East and Asia. There are now 162 satellite campuses worldwide, an increase of 43 percent in just the past three years.
Hand-wringing
At the same time, growing numbers of traditional source countries for students, from South Korea to Saudi Arabia, are trying to improve both the quantity and quality of their own degrees, engaging in a fierce - and expensive - race to recruit students and create world-class research universities of their own.
All this competition has led to considerable hand-wringing in the West. During a 2008 campaign stop, for instance, then-candidate Barack Obama spoke in alarmed tones about the threat that such academic competition poses to US competitiveness.
"If we want to keep on building the cars of the future here in America," he declared, "we can't afford to see the number of PhDs in engineering climbing in China, South Korea, and Japan even as it's dropped here in America."
In the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, legitimate security concerns led to enormous student-visa delays and bureaucratic hassles for foreigners aspiring to study in the US. Student numbers have since rebounded, despite intermittent problems, but there remain severe limits on work and residency visas.
Perhaps some of the anxiety over the new global academic enterprise is understandable, particularly in a period of massive economic uncertainty. But educational protectionism is as big a mistake as trade protectionism.
The globalization of higher education should be embraced, not feared - including in the US. There is every reason to believe that the worldwide competition for human talent, the race to produce innovative research, and the rush to train talented graduates who can strengthen knowledge-based economies will be good for the US as well.
No zero-sum
Above all, this is because the expansion of knowledge is not a zero-sum game. More PhD production and burgeoning research in China, for instance, doesn't take away from America's store of learning: on the contrary, it enhances what we know and can accomplish.
Because knowledge is a public good, intellectual gains by one country often benefit others. Chinese research may well provide the building blocks for innovation by US entrepreneurs - or those from other countries.
Indeed, the economic benefits of a global academic culture are significant.
Just as free trade provides the lowest-cost goods and services, global academic competition is making free movement of people and ideas, on the basis of merit, more and more the norm.
The US should respond to the globalization of higher education not with angst but with a sense of possibility.
(The author is a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.www.project-syndicate.org)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
