NYU, with outposts in Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and Abu Dhabi is on it’s way to becoming the Starbucks of higher education. Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern and CMU each have a franchise in the desert sands. Beyond the dunes, over the seas, in the utter east, one will find Yale, Johns Hopkins, MIT and Georgia Tech. This interest in setting up shop anywhere east of Pirate Alley is not confined to US universities. UK and Australian universities have been trying as well.
Many follow in the footsteps of B-schools. INSEAD, Chicago’s GSB (I know, I should say Booth, but the acronym BSB seems insulting), Duke’s Fuqua (say it like a Canadian and it is insulting) and Kellogg had already established outposts and alliances on distant shores at least a decade earlier.
Why the lust to go global? Particularly in locations that espouse values inimical to free inquiry. Please, no answers that juxtaposes `global’ and `interconnected’. Lets try a couple of others.
1) Its important to expose students and faculty to the wider world.
OK. One could achieve this in ways that do not require building campuses elsewhere. Choosing to admit students from around the world. Encouraging students to spend an extended period abroad at a foreign University or College. Selecting faculty from around the world. Supporting and encouraging research with an international dimension.
2) Maintain or increase share of able students, faculty and attractive employment opportunities.
If Universities are platforms for matching students, faculty and employers, then it helps to be close to where there are the deepest pool of able students, attractive employment opportunities etc. If one believes these pools will be located in India and the PRC, say, then it would make sense for a University to buy an option in the form of a satellite campus. If the bet comes out right, one should expect the University to pick up and move entirely to the satellite campus. If the intellectual center of the World is to shift east, why not move with it? Perhaps, in a score of years, Yale will call Madras (oops Chennai) home rather than New Haven. A homecoming of sorts!
3) $$$$$
Galbraith once described the crusaders this way:
Beneath the mantled cross beat hearts firmly attuned to the value of real estate.
Something similar can probably be said of those who lead our Universities. If we have reached the upper limit of fees that can be charged (any more and we switch from becoming teachers to concierge’s…….are we there yet?), then, the only way to grow revenue to feed the search for knowledge is to increase the volume of students. How is one to do that without sacrificing quality? Go east, where the bodies are. In some cases, autarchs, plutocrats and apparatchiks will defray the costs of doing so.
Any other reasons?
The Leisure of the Theory Class 
6 comments
November 3, 2010 at 4:51 am
Eilon
Maybe the reason is advertisement: Why to choose NYU? It is an international school, and has outposts all around the globe. Their faculty must know the world inside out. Stanford, on the other hand, does not open to the world. If you want to study in a modern school, join NYU!
Another reason: INSEAD allows students to spend some time on their Singapore campus. This by itself is a reason to choose this school. There may be cheaper ways to offer students trips to east Asia, but this way sounds more serious than others.
November 3, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Rakesh Vohra
Suppose it is a way to raise one’s profile. Why is it important to raise one’s profile? Presumably it changes the profile of applicants and employers who come to NYU. In this case, I have it covered under item (2).
Perhaps its a costly signal of commitment to being `truly global’. Don’t have a good argument of why building abroad is a better signal of this than other actions one would take.
November 3, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Paul Goldberg
The Times Higher global ranking of universities is quite high profile in the UK, and it awards a small amount of credit for international mix of staff and students. Overseas sites can of course raise the level of this international mix. Furthermore, will apology for being UK-centric, recent changes to the funding regime may make institutions prefer to diversify their sources of income.
November 5, 2010 at 3:33 am
Máy chấm công
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November 5, 2010 at 7:12 am
Pat Dugan
Perhaps it lends credibility to the University’s message, like this blog. To understand a particular country/region one must go deeper than what is described above as portable knowledge. There is a belief that in order to understand a country/region you can visit, stay an extended stay, or import individuals from that region. Knowledge may be better attained by long-term immersion within the context of that country/region. Thus, a University which can declare it has that local presence would have more credibility than say a university with a visiting professor. As a customer of theoretical constructs, one would value the insights from the university with local presence over one with temporary presence. Then again, it is really #3.
November 5, 2010 at 10:21 am
Rakesh Vohra
Re about Paul’s observations regarding rankings, yes. If rankings place some emphasis on having overseas sites, then that may encourage some institutions to build them. As Eilon noted in his comment, this helps raise the profile of that institution. However, this begs the question of why such sites are a good thing in the first place. Pat Dugan, suggests that it is more than just a matter of costly signaling; immersion and commitment reveal knowledge that one cannot have otherwise. Since I’m partial to my armchair, the thought that there is insight to be had out of it scares me!
The diversification argument that Paul raises has some legs and not just in the UK; I acknowledged it (I think) in point (2) of my post. However, there I argued that it was merely a way station to a campus moving entirely. What about a middle ground? In other words, Oxford maintains its mothership in that short, squat city of dreaming spires but with satellites beyond the seas. How would this work exactly? Faculty are sent at periodic intervals from the mothership to `bring a light unto the gentiles’? I think this imposes a huge cost on faculty. Something else will have to give. Or, satellite campuses have their own faculty complement? If this could work, there is no reason for the University as we currently conceive of it to exist. I believe, that Universities as currently configured make sense because of the complementarities that can be exploited by co-locating faculty and students. If one denies the existence of such complementarities, then why should Universities have a physical presence?