A crack in the foundations

Predicting the future is the mug’s game that most of us are happy to play. The trick is to make predictions that are vague enough, or far enough ahead, to allow plausible deniability.

But 2020 will go into the digital textbooks as a case study of the futility of claiming much foresight.

Rewind a decade and every other organisation had a “Vision 2020” strategy, predicting the trends that would be shaping their world at the start of a new decade. Well, that worked out well.

Now, we are in a new period of crystal ball gazing as we try to divine what a post-pandemic future will look like. But if we are honest, looking even a few months ahead is hard at the moment.

As a government minister quoted in The Times put it last week, predicting how the Covid crisis will end “is like trying to discuss the economic consequences of the peace in 1918 before we have got the peace”.

For universities, one of the big imponderables is what the future holds for the internationalisation of higher education.

In the years BC (before Covid), universities in the UK, US, Australia and Canada could rely on the financial life force of international students, whether or not they had established global brands.

There are a few reasons that this became such a fundamental part of their operations.

The first is demand, which was insatiable – for reasons we will get to.

The second is that this was one of the only taps they could turn up when state funding declined, as it inexorably did – partly because governments knew that this alternative funding source was available.

It is worth putting on record that the internationalisation of higher education is an inherently good thing. Have some taken it too far at times, or relied too heavily on certain markets? Of course. But taken as a whole, the flow of ideas and talent and goodwill around the world, through the conduit of universities, is an end in itself for higher education.

But let’s not pretend that the revenue generated by this flow is not a primary concern too. It has to be – the funding systems in which many universities operate demand it.

I have said that demand for places was insatiable, and that the flow of minds and money from East to West was a foundation solid enough to build on.

That idea has been underpinned by the huge cohorts of young people coming through in much of Asia, coupled with the rise of the middle classes, and the importance those cultures place on education (and willingness to pay for it).

Seen in this context, continued growth in demand seemed baked in to the global demographics.

There are variables that have affected demand for a university education in different Western systems. Pulling power has largely been based on access to visas and post-study work opportunities, but also on factors such as language requirements and perceptions – Australia has in the past seen large declines in demand after high-profile xenophobic attacks on international students.

But the big picture seemed settled: even a rise in the quality of domestic provision in East Asia did little to reduce confidence that there was more than enough demand to go around. In short, the flow from East to West was never in doubt. Until it was.

So what happens now? Covid is the bolt from the blue that no Vision 2020 strategy factored in. Borders and campuses remain closed a year on, the pandemic response in Asia has been more effective than in the West, and reputations and perceptions have undoubtedly changed.

We also have other factors to throw into the mix: a political cold front between China and many of the countries that have welcomed hundreds of thousands of its students in years gone by; but also some green shoots – the departure of Donald Trump from the White House being an obvious one.

In our cover story this week, we consider the path ahead, looking with particular attention at the way in which international recruitment via agents has changed in recent years, and the way that this multibillion-dollar industry may change again in the years after Covid.

Predicting the future may be a mug’s game, but that does not mean universities do not have to prepare for it. The way that internationalisation bounces back, and the form in which it does, is going to be one of the most significant issues for universities in the period ahead.

- john.gill@timeshighereducation.com