European Institutions Lead in International Dual-Degree Partnerships, Study Finds

Hm... Seriously, we need to concern about today's globalization in Higher Education in the U.S. 

European Institutions Lead in International Dual-Degree Partnerships, Study Finds 

(By AISHA LABI)- Jan 23, 09

To demonstrate their credentials as global institutions, universities on both sides of the Atlantic are creating an increasing number of international joint-degree and dual-degree programs. But American institutions trail their European counterparts in offering such degrees, and American students are less likely than European students to participate in such programs, according to a report by the Institute of International Education and the Free University of Berlin.

Researchers at the institute, located here, and the German university collaborated on the report, “Joint and Double Degree Programs in the Transatlantic Context,” which was released on Thursday and is based on the results of a survey of senior administrators at 180 American and European universities that was conducted from March to June of last year.

“Increasingly, universities in the United States and abroad know that they need to give their students an international perspective and an international experience to be competitive professionals when they graduate,” said Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Institute of International Education. “The challenge is how to do that and, increasingly, how to do it most cost-effectively.”

American colleges have long offered study-abroad programs, but such programs tend not to integrate students effectively into overseas host institutions and usually last less than a full semester or academic year. Results from the survey suggested that American “students do not see tangible value in studying abroad, and study abroad is not an integrated element in most academic disciplines, especially in the sciences,” the report said.

For Europeans, the decade-long Bologna Process, whereby more than 40 countries have been harmonizing their degree cycles in anticipation of the creation of the European Higher Education Area by 2010, has underpinned the growing focus on internationalization. “In Europe, the idea of having more transferable skills and creating more mobility through these joint programs has been going on for much longer than in the United States,” said Daniel Obst, director of membership and higher-education services at the institute. The rapid growth in the number of English-language programs at European universities has helped to facilitate this mobility, he added.

Europe’s long-term commitment to international higher-education collaboration is reflected in the pre-eminence of its institutions among dual-degree programs. Both European and American universities "are most likely to have collaborative degree programs with European partners than with institutions in any other region,” says the report.

Most of the respondents to the survey reported that their institutions were planning to develop more international joint- and dual-degree programs, but cost hurdles were a significant factor on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fewer Obstacles in Europe

The report noted that in American universities, tuition-paying students are more likely to bear the costs of such programs than in Europe, where institutions are able to tap into a wider range of support from governments and nonprofit groups. The European Union-United States Atlantis Program—a grant-awarding arm of the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education—is one of the few sources of government support available to American institutions for international degree programs. (The Atlantis program underwrote the report in conjunction with the European Union.)

American universities also face greater “challenges in securing institutional support and recruiting students” for such programs, the report says. The perceived increased cost of pursuing part of their degree at a foreign institution may be a deterrent for American students, said Matthias Kuder of the Free University of Berlin, one of the report's co-authors. In many instances, such concerns are not valid, he said, and “there are examples where doing a joint degree abroad might be even cheaper for an American student.”

In addition to cost barriers, securing formal recognition of joint- and dual-degree programs was cited by some survey respondents as a significant hurdle. Some criticized "accreditation authorities on both sides of the Atlantic" for being slow to establish criteria for recognizing degrees offered through international partnerships. Because of the Bologna Process, degree-recognition problems are less an issue in Europe than in the United States, said Mr. Kuder.

The kind of in-depth links among institutions that lead to the establishment of joint- and dual-degree programs are often initiated through the professional activities of a single professor. Such a “bottom up” strategy, the report says, is far more common than a “top down” approach, in which programs are begun "as a strategic choice made by the institution’s management.”

In the United States, especially, what is needed for the establishment of effective joint- and dual-degree programs is a “political vision that inspires students to study abroad" and establishes a regulatory framework that fosters the creation of such programs and eases recognition of their degrees.