What's Happening With Transnational Branch Campuses?

The current issue of the journal, International Higher Education, has a selection of articles about "Branch Campuses & Transnational Higher Education. In case you, like we, have been wondering what's happening in that realm of higher education recently, the four articles provide a good brief with varying perspectives. Below is a quote from Philip G. Altbach's contribution, "Why Branch Campuses May Be Unsustainable." The other three articles are titled "International Branch Campuses: Trends and Directions," by Rosa Becker; "Gulf State Branch Campuses," by Spencer Witte; and "Transnational Higher Education: Who Benefits?" by Vik Naidoo.

Many of the growing mushrooms [campuses] may only hold a limited life span and a few might be poisonous. Let us be honest about branch campuses. With a few notable exceptions, they are not really campuses. They are, rather, small, specialized, and limited academic programs offered offshore to take advantage of a perceived market. Not surprisingly, the most popular programs offered are in business management and information technology—with fairly low setup costs and significant worldwide demand. Except where generous hosts—such as in the Arabian Gulf, Singapore, and a few other places—provide facilities and infrastructure, branch campuses become rather spartan places, resembling office complexes rather than academic institutions.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Multicampus Planning: Behind the Scenes

One of SCUP's favorite higher education writers, Melissa Ezarik, examines a wide range of issues faced by member campuses of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA):

When a branch campus doesn’t have a full range of facilities, it can seem an undesirable location. “There’s always the issue of keeping people tied back to the main campus,” says [former SCUP president] Daniel Paulien, president of Paulien & Associates in Denver, which works with colleges and universities on facilities planning, including the use of space. Yet sometimes faculty and staff reluctant to be based on the other campus admit later to liking where they’re at."

The United Arab Emirates and the Branch Campus Gold Rush

By Kevin Schoepp in International Higher Education. Abstract: "The fairly new higher education system in the United Arab Emirates is experiencing accelerated growth. The country opened its first university in 1976, established its Ministry of Higher Education in 1992, and began full time licensing and accrediting of higher education in 2000. Many foreign institutions have opened branch campuses. This expansion’s frenetic pace has presented both opportunity and peril for the nation and its students." Money quote: "Failures cause reverberations throughout the region. Skeptics revel, students suffer, and the United Arab Emirates is worse off than when it opened its doors."