Stirring the Lions: Strategy and Tactic in the Global Higher Education Wars

Abstract

In this presentation, Susan Robertson, Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Bristol, examines the United States' and Australia's responses to the European Union's regionalizing and globalizing strategies through higher education.

Both Australia and the United States have a "lion's share" of the higher education export market, the former as a result of its sophisticated research and development infrastructure, and the latter as a result of recent, aggressive state-led marketing and student recruitment.

Robertson argues that internal and external events in the United States have caused a rapid decline in their global position in higher education, while Australia is increasingly concerned with the possible effects on its European and Asian markets if a globalizing European model of higher education dominates the American one.

Co-sponsored by: the Center for European Studies, the European Union Center of Excellence, and the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE).