In almost every sector of American life, business, politics, entertainment, sports, and the arts, it is clear we operate in a global context. As IBM CEO Lou Gerstner said at Finance Conference 2000, "We have an exceptionally clear line of sight to a shift that has moved large portions of our economy from a physical to a digital basis, and given rise to the first truly global marketplace of goods, services and ideas." It is less clear as to whether our postsecondary education community is responding fully to the challenges of the new global marketplace.

It shouldn’t take another Sputnik launch and a Cold War to galvanize our nation into action on international education. The launch of the Internet and global competition should be enough. In prior years, it was possible to avoid, for example, language studies with impunity. No longer. The Clinton-Gore administration knows this.

President Clinton, in his April 19, 2000, international education executive memorandum (http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/04-2000/wh-000419.html), identified the challenges our country and our education community face: "To continue to compete successfully in the global economy and to maintain our role as a world leader, the United States needs to ensure that its citizens develop a broad understanding of the world, proficiency in other languages, and knowledge of other cultures."

Some institutions are working at developing such broad understanding of the world. But it does take some work. Many students who have just adjusted to life on campus are often reluctant to take on the challenge of living abroad. Nonetheless, Michigan State University sends approximately 20 percent of its students abroad to study. Most other schools that size send barely 1 percent. The California State University System now sends 2,000 students abroad each year with plans to increase that number to 6,000. Yet, it may be less costly for an American student to study abroad than in the United States.

In American postsecondary education, universal quality education requires intensive attention to international cultures, languages, economies, and political systems. International education for postsecondary students occurs not only through study abroad and exchanges but also through on-campus curricular components, non-curricular activities, and the campus presence of students from diverse countries and cultures.

More than 129,000 American postsecondary students received credit for study abroad last year. Recent trends have been encouraging. The strength of the American economy and the globalization of economies and employment are leading greater numbers of U.S. students to complete a portion of their academic programs overseas. Moreover, over 500,000 international students reside in the United States each year. They have not only an important cultural impact on U.S. campuses and surrounding communities, but also an important financial impact, contributing over $12 billion to the U.S. economy annually.⁵⁷ But we are losing our share of these students to other nations that also see value in welcoming students from abroad.

The Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) has played a significant role in the internationalization of American college and university campuses and in the stimulation of international exchanges. OPE's International Education and Foreign Language Studies (IEFLS) domestic programs, funded through Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA), have been critically important for the development of the U.S. higher education infrastructure. This infrastructure produces our nation's international expertise, the dissemination of international knowledge to policymakers and citizens, and the training of students for informed and responsible work, life, and citizenship in global economies.

The American postsecondary institutions with Title VI-supported National Resource Centers constitute less than three percent of all colleges and universities offering language instruction in the United States. Yet they account for 21 percent of undergraduate and 55 percent of graduate student enrollments in the less commonly taught languages (e.g., Swahili, Korean, Indonesian, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish).⁵⁸

Moreover, Title VI funding for the 28 Centers for International Business Education in FY 1999 ($8 million) leveraged institutional and private sector funding more than three times the level of the federal investment. These centers have helped to internationalize American business schools and their curricula, as CEOs have long espoused, by enhancing the international components of disciplined-based courses, supporting foreign study and research for students and faculty, providing seminars for business executives and other postsecondary institutions, and facilitating U.S. visits by foreign education and business leaders.

The Fulbright-Hays overseas programs administered by OPE complement the Title VI programs by providing K-12 teachers, college students, doctoral degree candidates, and college faculty overseas opportunities for curriculum development, research, and academic training. These programs support the development of American international expertise in world areas and foreign languages important both for our nation and other nations. In addition, the Institute for International Public Policy (IIPP) supports consortia of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), other minority-serving institutions, and institutions that train foreign service professionals. This work increases the number of minorities in private international voluntary organizations, the U.S. Foreign Service, and related international positions.

The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), another OPE program, jointly funds multi-institution, multi-country postsecondary education curriculum development and exchange consortia with the European Community, with Canada and Mexico, and with Brazil. External evaluations of these programs show that they have internationalized academic programs both in the U.S. and abroad through the production and dissemination of curricula in professional fields that successfully cross national, disciplinary, and language boundaries, including business and management, engineering, environmental sciences, and health sciences.

To cite one example, FIPSE’s Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education is currently funding various programs involving institutions and students from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. One project is examining sustainable water resource management, another is focusing on legal issues in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and others are preparing students for high demand technical jobs.

In spite of these successful efforts and those of numerous other postsecondary education institutions, many American citizens and postsecondary institutions have drawn a sharp line between "international" education and "regular" programs of study. Many citizens and institutions continue to regard study abroad, on-campus international courses, inter-institutional postsecondary consortia, and similar efforts to be "frills" and "add-ons."

This view has produced American postsecondary education students and graduates who lack an appreciation for (and often even an interest in) foreign cultures, languages, perspectives, and problems. As one OPE Agenda Project dialogue participant remarked, "America is both the most global and the least global nation in the world. We have a problem that no one else has: we can pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist."

Indeed, a closer look indicates that American postsecondary education today is not as well positioned with respect to international education as suggested above. For example, the number of international students studying each year in the United States is approximately five times the number of American students studying abroad, and less than one percent of U.S. students enrolled in postsecondary education each year study abroad. Moreover, less than 10 percent of the American students studying abroad do so for longer than a semester.⁵⁹

Part of the problem may be that institutions and students overestimate the cost of studying abroad. But some institutions have found that sending students abroad for a year actually costs less than teaching them at their home campuses here in the United States. The Institute for International Education recently commissioned Arthur Anderson to study whether U.S. colleges and universities are keeping their books in a way that accurately reflects the costs of educating a student on campus as compared to overseas. If the study reveals what the Institute expects it to—that sending students abroad is a relative bargain—it should support efforts to strengthen international education.

At the same time, the flow of international students to American postsecondary institutions is increasingly threatened as other countries mount vigorous recruitment campaigns to compete for international students. Also, certain Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) visa issuance regulations decrease the number of international students studying in the U.S. Improved training for consular officers regarding U.S. educational practices could help address this problem.